Evolution
by DN7
Summary: In the aftermath of the Spear Crisis, 8th Armored will find that actions of the past will not be swept away so easily by others who discover them. *Sporadic Updates To Be Expected*
1. Chapter 1

**Evolution**

**A Section 8 & Mass Effect Crossover Challenge/One-shot**

**A/N: So I know that I said I would be working on researching and preparing my other fics (The Unsung Hero saga and Stargate: A New Era), but when you get an idea in your head, you sometimes can't shake it until you work on it for a bit. That brings me to this one shot/challenge. **

**First off let me be clear, I consider myself a stickler for canon and I stick with the source material as much as possible. However, in Section 8 the governing body of Earth and her colonies is the United States Empire. This is NOT my own creation or thinking, rather it is what TimeGate Studios, the guys behind Section 8, came up with. If you are going to complain about how 'typical American's think they'll rule over everybody', kindly don't go any further. Rather, contact TimeGate and complain to them about their choice in how to portray humanity in the _fictional _future they created.**

**Continuing on from there, since Section 8 has a wealth of incredibly advanced technology (they use anti-matter reactions to power their armor, for starters), the Citadel races get a major firepower upgrade to try and keep the balance, otherwise this would be a stomp fic.**

**I feel it important to mention that this one shot may or may not turn into a series of one shots that could progress through ME events. I already have a lot of projects on my plate as is, and this is mostly an exercise to get this idea out of my head. If you would like to continue this fic, all I ask is that you let me know ahead of time so I can get you my own ideas for consideration.**

**I'm done for now. Enjoy!**

**EDIT (2/8/2013):**

**I've fixed the date that this occurs in to be in line with a specified date that is on some Section 8 wallpapers. I also have added some additional dialog and descriptors, only a few lines.**

* * *

_**-/Historical Database Access Granted/-**_

_**/Authorization Level Alpha: Level 1 Classified Materials Only/**_

In the early 21st century, amidst global turmoil, the United States of America managed to bring the nations of Earth under one government. The newly formed United States Empire sought to relieve the heavily overpopulated and resource poor planet Earth by sending the populations of whole regions out into the stars in a colonization effort. These early colonies however were unsuccessful, often facing extreme environments.

_**/Level 1 Classified Material Access Granted/**_

To that end a small group of the Senate sponsored a project to use highly experimental genetic enhancements to turn a group of volunteers into an army of super-soldiers whose sole purpose was to pave the way for human expansion. Codenamed: Spear, their orders included the extermination of any and all threats to humanities colonies and the protection of all settlers as the worlds they occupied were terraformed.

The Spear accomplished their goal in brutally efficient fashion, and paved the way for billions to live beyond Earth.

_**/End Level 1 Classified Materials/**_

Even with billions spread out across the stars, Earth still held billions more. After centuries of abuse, in the middle of the 23rd century the Earth went through a cataclysmic period of rebirth. Decades worth of natural disasters, famine, and plagues purged the Earth of billions of lives. The exact number has never been found. It was through the United States Empire's administrative and military work that kept the remaining human's on Earth alive.

This 'Rebirth' the Earth went through had the unintended side effect of evolve humanity to its next level. The human races continued existence is largely credited to the implementation of radical new technologies in every field of science, which had in turn evolved humanity on every level: physically, mentally, and genetically. The Post-Rebirth humans of Earth were significantly superior in every way to their cousins in the colonies, and used their ability and new technology to restore Earth from a barren wasteland to a lush utopia.

With Earth re-stabilized, the United States Empire reestablished authority over it's colonies. All of which saw that Earth was in fact the best place for the center of their government to be placed. Rather than the Empire be in direct control, each colony would form administrative regions that Earth would then overall manage.

With a new breed of humanity and greater technology available, expansion efforts proved to be much easier. The Spear were no longer needed in the face of the United States Imperial Forces, with the newly formed Armored Infantry at its core, and Spear was effectively disbanded.

Over one hundred years later the Empire is still expanding, and the USIF is humanities protector from all threats.

–_**/End Historical Database Access/-**_

* * *

**/Earth Date/ -01.03.2538 – Two Weeks Post Spear Crisis-**

**/Ship/ –- Battlecruiser USIS Texas, 8th Armored Infantry Division Flagship, Taskforce 33-**

**/Destination/ -New Shanxi-**

**/Galactic Location/ -Star HD149415, 4th planet-1000 light years from Solar System-**

**/Affiliate/ -United States Empire-**

**/Terraform Status/ -Earth Standard Atmosphere Achieved-**

**/Colonization Status/ -Selection Process Underway-Autofabs and Defense Points Complete-**

**/Communication Blackout Duration/ –- 48 Hours, 37 Minutes, 3 Seconds and Counting-**

**/ETA/ –- 3 Hours, 38 Minutes-**

Sitting in his prep room, Captain Corde reviewed the data MOTHER, the all purpose AI network of the USIF, provided. As automated arms attached the tritium armor plating of his Patton class Powered Assault Armor to the nanomuscle under-suit he wore, he couldn't help but sigh in exasperation. It was only a few weeks ago that he had killed General Salvador, the misguided genetically enhanced leader of Orion's Spear, and had saved the colony of New Madrid in the process.

With the Spear's main leader dead, Section 8 was now relegated to clean up of the remaining Spear forces. Unfortunately, their manipulation of the separatist faction Arm of Orion, ran deep and were proving to be hard to wholly eliminate. New Madrid it seemed was only a few of the many places they had set up bases in the Outer Rim of the United States Empire.

**An hour ago, USIS Texas CIC**

Being a military ship, the USIS Texas held a very spartan feel to it. Most of its hallways were dimly lit, as after the 'Rebirth' human eye sight acuity had increased by several factors, and nearly every room held numerous data terminals from which the ships crew could perform their duties from. The CIC was different in that it held something very important to the entire task force.

It was the CIC that held the primary servers for the ships portion of the MOTHER AI network, which was vital in combat as it allowed for priority processing requests to be handled directly rather than have to be routed through the ship at which any point the cabling could become damaged. The CIC, unlike the bridge, was situated in the dead center of the ship to protect it as much as possible from weapons fire and also had the highest security protocols in place to even get to it.

For Corde to have been called there by General Stone proved how important the upcoming briefing was.

"Corde..." General Stone greeted with out looking up from his central data terminal, having heard the armored soldiers footsteps.

Corde snapped off a salute, "General. You wished to see me?"

Stone looked up finally. His infamous white beard looking slightly unkempt from the numerous duties he held as being the commanding officer of an entire division. His armor, though having its own light and superficial battle damage, was polished enough to shine in the low lighting of the CIC's holographic displays. Before speaking, he nodded to a nearby officer who then silently lead the CIC staff out of the room. MOTHER then announced that the CIC was secure from all bugs as the CIC's inner door shut.

"Son..." Stone began sullenly, his deep voice almost echoing, "As you know we have been working on eradicating any remaining Spear forces at the request of Senate Command. Unfortunately with the recent election, Senate Command has changed priority of Spear's eradication to Class Delta until that data package you and your team recently recovered can be fully decrypted."

Corde was shocked to say the least. The last Spear base they had located and emptied of occupants held a highly encrypted data package that MOTHER wasn't able to decipher immediately. That immediately rose 1st Recon's and Stone's concern. Spear essentially used USIF technology, and as such MOTHER should have had no problem with the package. Coupled with the fact that Class Delta is the second lowest priority possible, leaving the separatist group that had nearly destroyed an entire colony to it's own devices for an unspecified amount of time was not a wise decision in his mind.

Stone held up his hand to stop Corde before he began, "I know how it feels Corde, but those are our orders. The reason Senate Command is so concerned about this is that the initial analysis of the data package suggested that it held information on one of the civilizations that the Spear eradicated in it's mission to secure the initial human colonies nearly one hundred years ago.

It seemed the aliens in question used an element with significant properties in nearly all aspects of their lives. From slower than light intra-system exploration to weapons to their own bodily functions. It was their galvenium to put it into perspective Until that information is fully decrypted, Senate Command doesn't want to tip off what remaining leadership of Spear there is that we know about it."

Corde nodded in acknowledgement. Galvenium, having first been discovered on the planet Boreas by Tobias Rehnquist, is a highly sought after metal that could be purposed into an efficient superconductor that shielded perfectly against all known radiation. Due to this unique property, galvenium is used primarily in ship building efforts, with some it starting to make it's way into other applications.

Something of that magnitude hadn't been discovered since humanities Age of Rebirth, which was when their mastery of anti-matter and high energy quantum physics came and opened up the stars to them. Even the Powered Assualt Armor he wore was built using that groundbreaking understanding of how to effectively contain individual anti-matter particles. Using them in an annihilation event to produce plasma for shields and power for the armors artificial muscles, jet packs, overdrive, the onboard AI/TacNet, and a whole suite of equipment.

"What are our orders until then General?"

Stone gave one of his rare smiles. Corde was more like his grandfather, Stone's old friend and one of the originators of the Armored Infantry's 'Burn-in' manevuer, than he realized.

"One of the newest colonies here in the Rim has gone silent. Since we are the closest, Senate Command is ordering us to check it out and provide assistance getting the colonies orbital defenses installed."

"Understood General."

"To that effect, with the Spear threat level reduced, Senate command has given us the cream of the crop from the graduating classes at the Academies on Earth. 1st Recon will once again be at full platoon strength, with you as it's CO." Stone beamed at Corde, " Congratulations Major Corde."

* * *

With the automated arms finishing tying in the micro-antimatter reactor into his armor, Corde received confirmation signals from the rest of 1st Recon that they were good to to go and waiting for him in the armory. It was only five minutes earlier they received word from short range comms that Shanxi was sending out a signal using their secondary, non-FTL beacon. That beacon had one of three message options.

Green, situation normal.

Yellow, non-military assistance required.

Red, immediate military assistance required.

It had been broadcasting a Code Red.

* * *

**MOTHER Network File Access: Granted**

**File: Patton-class USIF Powered Assault Armor**

**Summary: Developed for the Armored Infantry of the US Imperial Forces, this armor is one of the most powerful and technologically advanced battle-suits in the USIF armory. Having been designed to dramatically increase every physical properties of the soldier wearing it, it guarantees that the soldier has every edge possible in a fire fight.**

**Details:**

**Protection: The suit uses a multiple layer protection system to ensure its occupant is protected against nearly every threat. **

**Using a rechargeable plasma shielding system allows the Armored Infantry to execute their infamous 'Burn-In' orbital drop maneuver as well as give them unsurpassed protection from incoming enemy fire. **

**Tritium alloy plating provides lightweight armor against any incoming projectiles that make it past the plasma shielding. **

**The suits under layer consists of a titanium reinforced nanomuscle weave that acts as a final ballistic defense, g-force impact absorption, and strength enhancement. **

**Below the nanomuscle is a classified Nuclear Biological Chemical (NUBIOCHEM) system in the form of a tight-fitting, flexible nanocomposite body glove that seals the wearer completely from external substances.**

**Other Features**

**Jet pack****/Overdrive: To further enhance the wearer's abilities, the suit comes with a rechargeable jet pack that is able to propel the soldier over 100 feet into the air. Overcharge mode increased the speed and strength of the nanomuscle's, allowing the soldier to run continuously at 75 mph for a few minutes. Like the Jet pack this is also a rechargeable ability. These two in conjunction with each other allow the Armored Infantry to get nearly anywhere.**

**AI: The MOTHER network extends even into the Armored Infantry's suits (called the Tactical Network, aka TacNet), allowing for battlefield commanders to maintain up to date on how battles progress, relay information, or to hack available enemy computers. The suits network helps the wearer keep track of his suit's and weapon's status and links him into any available TacNet.**

**Lock-On: Using the MOTHER network in the suit, the soldier can command it to follow a certain target for an amount of time by giving it direct control of the suits muscles. Like many of the suits other abilities, this is also a rechargeable ability.**

**Micro-Antimatter Power source: Perhaps the most critical piece of technology in the Power Assault Armor, the micro-antimatter reactor provides plasma for the shielding as well as power for the suit and it's many abilities. Using stored antimatter and tritium or deuterium the suit uses the resulting plasma from the annihilation event to use in the shield while the energy from the event is stored in a main capacitor for use by the suit. Due to the extreme amount of power this provides, the Powered Assault Armor does not need refueling for many years, and even in the event of no fuel, the waste form the wearer can be recycled until it can be refueled (even if its weeks later).**

* * *

**A/N:** **So there you have it, the first part of this string of one shots, which may or may not end up in a full story. I honestly can't say where this will go, as I won't force myself to write this fic out. If this did inspire you to write your own story, please PM me so I can get you some of my ideas for your own consideration.**

**~DN7**

**PS – Follow me on Twitter for weekly-ish updates! Mitchell_DN7 is my handle!**

**EDIT(2/8/2013): The star system I mention for the location of New Shanxi is an actual star. I use an awesome program called Space Engine to plot and figure out where various things could possibly be. If your computer is good enough, it's worth the download just to be able to see how big/small we are compared to the rest of galaxy and known universe.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Evolution**

**A Section 8 & Mass Effect Crossover**

* * *

**A/N: Yeah I know I said that updates would be sporadic, but like I said before when you get an idea stuck in your head you sometimes just have to work on it until it goes away. I will honestly say I was surprised at the reception the first chapter got, thanks for the support one and all!**

**But you didn't come here to read my rambling... If you did, well...**

**EDIT (2/11/13): Fixed some spelling errors, renamed the Asari dreadnought that would be used for the Asari negotiation party as the Destiny Ascension most likely would not leave the Citadel Defense Fleet unless times were really desperate, also changed the name of the Section 8 trooper who kills Desolas.**

**EDIT (3/4/13): Corrected the Citadel Era date to be the correct Galactic Standard year.**

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2657.033.001**

**Location: Argos Rho Cluster**

**Fleet: Turian Border Patrol 131**

To put it mildly, Admiral Desolas was not having a good day. He didn't at all mind when he was given the orders to patrol this section of Citadel space, not when the Terminus pirates and slavers seemed to be coming out of the woodwork lately. No, what irked him was when his fleet, a dreadnought with ten escort cruisers and five packs of three frigates, was reassigned to help move the infamous Pinnacle Station. He believed it was a last line of defense the Citadel would need in case the Krogans on Tuchanka ever got their heads out of their humps and organized against Citadel space. Primarch Delop, at the urging of some Asari Matriarch's and Dalatrass Mivon, though had ordered the elite training station moved closer to the Terminus systems. Allegedly it was to provide logistical support for any future raids, but Desolas knew that it was pointless.

_-Unless galactic communication technology evolves, by the time a report of raiders even reaches the nearest capable fleet, the pirates will have had time to do what they please with the colony._ _As such, I request that Patrol 131 be returned to it's original task of patrolling the border between Citadel and Terminus space._

Desolas put the finishing touches on his plea to the Turian Councilor, hoping his long time friend would see reason and agree to pressure Delop into getting another fleet to move Pinnacle. There was one fringe benefit to having received this assignment though.

"Brother," a voice called out to him, forcing him to look up. "How's your groveling going?" Saren teased.

Desolas smirked at his brother's antics. Having the chance to meet with his younger brother, who was currently on Pinnacle to complete some Blackwatch training, for the first time in nearly a decade made the assignment almost worth it. As such Desolas got up from his desk, walked over to his shorter brother, and hugged him.

"Ah Saren..." He breathed out, "The spirits I see have decided to gift you with some muscle in the time I've been away."

Saren chuckled at his brother's jab, and responded with a light biotic shove, "As well as some more biotic control."

Desolas flexed his mandibles in a Turian smile, "So I see my _little_ brother." He then turned around to go back behind his desk. "Just let me send this message off to the Councilor and then I will be off duty. Tell me though... Are you still seeing that Asari you wrote to me about?" Desolas again took a shot at his brother's ego before hitting send on his terminals holographic interface.

"As a matter of fact no." Saren replied staunchly. "She left me for a Salarian when I told her about my Blackwatch Cabal selection."

"I'm sorry to hear that brother. From what I remember she was quite... Shapely." Desolas grinned at seeing his brother's eye's go slightly blank, the memories coming back of his ex, before he caught himself day dreaming.

"Uh... Yes she was..." Saren stammered. "But she would have only slowed me down. After all, the only way I can beat my brother the Admiral is by becoming Spectre, and to do that I can't leave anything behind."

Desolas got up from his desk and walked over to his brother who was still standing in front of it. Putting a gentle hand on his shoulder, Desolas spoke "There is time enough for that Saren. Don't forget to live your life for yourself before you devote it to something as great as the Spectres."

Saren looked a little bewildered, "That... Is the most un-Turian thing I have ever heard you say Desolas."

Desolas merely shrugged in response, "Perhaps being an Admiral in charge of a fleet has changed me. Now then, let us go to the mess hall and see what the chefs have prepared for us!" Desolas began to lead Saren out of his personal quarters when his omni-tool pinged, notifying him of a new message. He quickly surveyed the notification, and his heart sunk.

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2657.033.002**

**Location: Unexplored Space Beyond Relay 314**

**Fleet: Turian Border Patrol 131 & Patrol 089**

The message Desolas received were orders to absorb what was left of Patrol 089 and to investigate the area beyond the newly activated Relay 314. The Captain in charge of the 089 was known to be a bit of a hothead when it came to enforcing Citadel law, and was sent to patrol one of the more inactive sectors by the Hierarchy. Unfortunately, fate was not without a sense of irony.

The preliminary report from the Captain, one Aruv Utellan, described the scenario as such that the new comers, who held three ships that were in the heavy cruiser classification, were working on activating Relay 314 when his patrol of five standard cruisers and three frigate packs happened across them.

When two of the alien ships had adjusted their position to cover the third and began to emit a massive electromagnetic field (a sure sign of power levels increasing), Utellan ordered his group to open fire.

The resulting battle was not pretty. The two ships were able to almost shrug off the mass accelerator volleys from the cruisers despite the lack of shielding, and fired some kind of energy weapon that destroyed a cruiser in one shot. Down to three cruisers, Utellan had ordered his frigates to close in and use disruptor torpedoes against the doubtlessly heavy armor plating.

Again that maneuver was costly as the two ships combined point defenses managed to chew through one of the frigate groups on their first pass. By that time, Relay 314 had been fully activated by the third alien ship, and as such it retreated back through. The other two ships fired one more volley, taking out a single cruiser together, and also made for the relay. However, due to their size and distance from the relay, they were much slower than a Citadel ship would have been. This hinted at their lack of element zero drive cores, and as such Utellan pushed to continue the attack until they went through the relay.

Despite Utellan's best efforts, the two ships managed to get through the relay, doubtlessly to report back to their home world. It was then that Utellan reported back to the Hierarchy, who then immediately sent a message to the Citadel Council and to Admiral Desolas.

When Desolas arrived at the relay, his first order of business was to throw Utellan in the brig for conduct unbecoming a Turian officer and ignoring First Contact protocol. Desolas then ordered his combined fleet through the relay to try and begin negotiations.

What awaited him though on the other side were the same three ships that Utellan had reported, as evidenced by the alien language written on the hulls of the ships, in geosynchronous orbit above what scans found to be the only settlement on the only hospitable planet in system. Desolas had his comm officer send the first contact package as well as an apology for the earlier incident.

The aliens though would have none of it. Desolas' fleet at this point held his dreadnought, twelve cruisers, and seven packs of three frigates. After the message was sent on all broadcast frequencies, the alien ships began their dramatic power buildup. Before Desolas could order evasive maneuvers, they fired. Three of his cruisers went down in a single volley.

His fleet quickly regained some composure and battled it out. Having learned from the first engagement, Desolas had his frigates fire their disruptor torpedo at maximum range, while he had his cruisers attempt to flank the enemy ships. The aliens it seemed were slow moving in their fleet movements, relying on their extremely durable armor and extraordinary firepower to get them through battles, whereas Citadel ships prioritized being able to move around the battlefield to try and line up the perfect shot.

That left him and his dreadnought at the back of the battle, using it's maneuvering thrusters to line up the perfect shot on one of the ships. With one his analysts guessing that the strange tower at the back of the ships was where the aliens put their bridge, he ordered for the first shot to be there. Turian dreadnoughts were capable of delivering several hundred kilotons of firepower in a round at the expense of fire rate, so when his dreadnought finally fired, the entire ship shook at the vibrations of the twenty kilo slug being accelerated at a fair percentage of light speed.

The results were equally impressive, as it shore off the entire tower section of left most ship. His crew cheered at the results, the aliens weren't invincible. That was short lived though as the wounded ship fired one of their devastating rounds at the dreadnought. Dreadnoughts, due to their size, often stayed far away from actual battles, engaging at distances over tens of thousands of kilometers. A range that only other dreadnoughts could match. This race though held weapons capable of reaching that far out in the size of a cruiser.

Their results weren't disappointing either, as the round hit the starboard wing assembly and tore it asunder. Crippled but not out of the fight, Desolas' crew responded by firing another round at their opponent without being told, this one aimed for the bow. That impact finally cracked the ships armor, and created an opening for one of the frigate packs to fire a salvo of disruptor torpedoes into.

_One ship down. Two to go_.

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2157.033.003**

**Location: Unexplored Space Beyond Relay 314**

**Fleet: Combined Turian Border Patrols 131, 089, & 174**

The battle in space had been brutal. Thankfully, with the arrival of another Patrol, 174 which held two dreadnoughts, it was ended quickly with no more Turian lives lost. After conferring with the Admiral of 174, Desolas agreed that they needed to solidify a position on the planet. It was obviously a colony, given the lack of a global population, and the massive cannons that were under construction that were pointed towards the sky.

The other Admiral, Suqwal, was an old friend of Desolas', and realized the potential this species held if their ships armor and firepower were anything to measure them by. Desolas had agreed, but was wary of the ramifications of trying to subdue the local population if a fully fledged force showed up. At which point Suqwal convinced Desolas that having a presence on the ground would put the odds in their favor. No species in their right mind would fire upon a garden world, let alone their own colony even if it was in 'enemy' hands.

As such, Desolas had his ground commanders draw up a plan of attack.

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2657.033.003**

**Location: Serpent Nebula, Widow cluster, Citadel**

Turian Councilor Vetak was sitting in his office reviewing some new proposals by the Salarian STG to look into some possible corruption within C-Sec that could involve some potentially classified material. He okay-ed the approval, as the cleaning house manuever would allow for a younger generation of C-Sec officers, mainly Turians fresh off their required stint in Hierarchy military, to come in and give C-Sec new life. His console beeped thrice, signaling a message flagged as urgent coming in. Opening it immediately, Vetak had to reread it to be sure that he had everything straight.

"Huh... Well Desolas, it seems that moving Pinnacle was a wise move after all." Vetak mused to himself before keying his omnitool to ping his secretary in. A near purple shaded Asari with a few white facial tattoos come in shortly after. "Ayana, clear my schedule for the rest of the day. I am calling an emergency meeting with the Council."

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2657.033.003**

**Location: Alien Colony, Unexplored Space Beyond Relay 314**

**Fleet: Combined Turian Border Patrols 131, 089, & 174**

Again, the new species had shown that they were no pushovers. When the fleet launched their drop-ships to start attacking the only recognizable city of the planet, they were met by fierce ground based AA fire. The first wave lost fifteen percent of its fighting force due to the effective fire, and it went downhill from there.

When troops did land on the outskirts of the city walls, they were met with heavy fire from automated machine gun and missile emplacements. These and the visible AA emplacements were taken out by a frigates bombing run, but at heavy damage to the frigate in question. With the path opened up, Turian soldiers began to move in. What they found was an eerily quite city. Normally, raid alarms would be blaring, civilians would be running for shelter, and whatever defense force there was would be engaging them as soon as possible.

Here, they met no resistance. As the first wave continued deeper into the city, the second wave came down and began setting up command posts and the like a fair distance from the city walls. When the first wave reached about a quarter of the way through to the colony's center, one of the squads spotted what appeared to be a scout on a hover bike. Before they could confirm, the entirety of the first wave was hit by mortar fire coming from seemingly random locations. As the front line began to retreat from what could have only been a pretargeted position, they were utterly decimated by a line of planted explosive charges.

As such, the game of hide-and-seek began.

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2657.033.004**

**Location: Alien Colony, Unexplored Space Beyond Relay 314**

**Fleet: Combined Turian Border Patrols 131, 089, & 174**

Desolas was just about ready to lay waste to this colony. It had become apparent that the civilian population had retreated to the city center long ago, and it was also the primary location for the defenders as whenever his ground commanders tried to push closer to the incredibly tall spire-like structure, their forces were met with stiff resistance.

What bothered him most were the few eye witness reports of seeing the defenders in person. One of the surviving privates of an ambushed patrol reported that the defenders dropped from a building over a fifteen stories high before using large blades to kill his squad-mates. That same private was convinced they were up against the Geth, as only machines could move as fast as what he saw.

A lieutenant from an earlier attempt at getting to the colony center reported much the same thing except that he saw what appeared to be more in lines with a Batarian in a science fiction set of power armor as it held some kind energy shielding that wasn't based on element zero and was near impossible to bring down without an Overload attack from an omnitool. Then of course the guns the aliens carried were impossibly huge, something that only a krogan could even attempt to carry.

Perhaps the worst part of it all was that they had yet to kill or incapacitate a single member of the defenders, lending credence to the theory that the Hierarchy had gotten itself into more trouble that it was worth. The wounds that were being inflicted on the Turian soldiers made their own weapons look archaic in comparison, and those who were lucky to survive suffered from extreme shell shock. All of it was making morale plummet.

_We need some kind of victory here, or we'll be in trouble if a fully fledged fleet arrives._ Desolas thought as he paced around his command prefab. His thoughts were interrupted though when his brother came into the tent.

"Desolas, I have something you might want to see." Saren spoke with a hint of smugness.

It didn't take Desolas long to connect the dots. "You went out with one of the patrols, didn't you?"

"I did, and we managed to get one of these alien upstarts."

Desolas strode quickly over to Saren, and struck him in the face. "THAT is for disobeying the order of a superior officer." Saren was stunned by his brother's action, and more so by the embrace that followed. "Thank the spirits that you came back."

After Desolas broke the hug, he let Saren lead him to where they brought in their prize.

"I will admit, it was all luck really. I happened to spot this alien moving to a better piece of cover and used a pull on him. Rather than take a chance, the squad filled him with holes. Nearly melted our guns in the process even after we disabled it's shields with an Overload." Saren explained as he lead the way to another prefab. Current guns operated by taking the heat produced by the barrel and storing it in dense heat sinks. If not given the chance to cool down, the heat sink could fail and melt the barrel of the gun. Opening the door, Desolas expected to see some monstrosity like a Krogan, but he could only see an engineering masterpiece lying on the table, with red liquid pouring out of the numerous bullet wounds. The armor plating held a gunmetal gray sheen while what appeared to be dark purple synthetic muscle was beneath it. Even with it's occupant dead, the armor was intimidating.

A Salarian scientist who had been attached to one of the patrol groups walked in from a side lab as Desolas and Saren observed the dead alien. It's size put it somewhere between the average Asari and Turian height wise, but any other physical characteristics were hidden by the armor. Desolas noted some kind of decal on its upper arms, along with an emblazoned winged creature.

"As you can tell," the Salarian began, "the exterior is an extremely durable, powered exoskeleton. Initial scans show the metallic plating to be a tritium alloy, while we have yet to determine the make up of what appears to be the muscle system to the suit."

Taking the information in, Desolas asked, "Is there anyway to get the alien out of the suit?".

The Salarian shook his head, "If there is, I haven't discovered it yet. Penetrating scans are unable to get us a look inside, and for a suit this complex, it will take time to even find a proper starting point."

"What about it's weapon?" Saren asked. "Is there anything we can learn from that?" The weapon in question was sitting on a separate table nearby. Any one whose even seen military weapons would be able to guess that it was the alien's analogue of a sniper rifle by the barrel length and the large scope.

"Other than its remarkably similar to our own technology minus eezo and that if you tried to fire it you would most likely lose your arm, nothing."

Saren looked over the fallen defender, _What other wondrous technology could you be withholding?_

After a moment of silence, Desolas spoke up, "Well, we now know that biotics are effective against them." He then keyed his omnitool, "Get the Cabals ready."

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2657.033.005**

**Location: Alien Colony, Unexplored Space Beyond Relay 314**

The deployment of the Turian biotic Cabals went great at first. A squad of them were able to stop an ambush in it's tracks, but then the defenders switched tactics from up close and personal to long range. Their snipers were deadly accurate and were able to punch through even the toughest of biotic barriers with ease. Biotic turians were rare, so Desolas was forced to spread out the handful of Cabal members he had amongst the regular ranks despite the animosity between the regulars Turian soldiers and the Cabal members.

Desolas was just going over a message from the fleet in orbit, which said that some of them had to leave to continue their normally scheduled patrols, when one of his lieutenants came into his prefab.

"Admiral! The latest recon team has come back with casualties!"

Desolas was growing weary of hearing that phrase and sighed, "How bad?"

The lieutenant faltered, "Uh- Ha-half of them were killed in action. S-sir, Lieutenant Arterius was woun-"

Desolas was out of the prefab before his underling could finish. He ran towards the medical section of the command post they set up, and saw several bodies bags laying around, waiting to be taken up to a ship to be transported home to Palaven. Once he reached the triage area, he didn't see head nor tail of his brother's distinctive silver plate tone. He continued on to the treatment area, and again found nothing. He was just about to breach the surgery suite when he was stopped by an orderly.

"Who are they working on?!" Desolas demanded.

"Sir, I do not know, but you cannot breach the sterile environment right now." The orderly answered just as a speaker turned on.

"Admiral, I am aware of your relation to my patient right now." A Salarian spoke, "He will recover. The sniper round tore off his right arm at the shoulder. We are working on fitting him with a prosthetic now. He will be out for a day, two at most. Now please, I have work to do."

Snarling in rage, Desolas punched the wall of the prefab. The pain in his hand now numbing the pain in his heart over his brother. After taking a deep breath, he refocused and went back to his command post.

Once he got there, he brought up the entire Turian comm network. "Attention all personnel, as of this moment we are no longer going to put innocent Turian lives at risk. We will begin a systematic orbital bombardment of this colony until the defenders are either neutralized or surrender. All ships stand by for further instructions. Ground personnel are to pull back to the base camp immediately."

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2657.033.005**

**Location: Serpent Nebula, Widow Cluster, Citadel Council Chambers**

"Are we agreed now that the Council should send a representative to help broker a peace before this small conflict turns into another Rachni War?" The Asari Councilor Besea questioned her colleagues. For the past forty Citadel hours the three Councilors had been going over every scrap of information they could glean from the initial reports from the Hierarchy. Even on the highest priority, messages took time to travel through the current comm buoy system. A front line report, depending on the distance it had to travel, could take any where from an hour to a full two days to reach where it was needed.

As such, when the reports of Desolas' fleet managing to take space superiority over the new alien arrivals came in, the Asari Councilor immediately pushed for a more diplomatic approach to be taken while the Turian Councilor Vetak wanted to send a full expedition fleet through to completely secure the system. The Salarian Councilor, Kalio, wanted to use the opportunity to gather as much information as possible from the wrecks of the alien ships, and requested that no matter what a STG contingent be sent to gather what they could. It had taken another full ten Citadel standard hours of debating to reach this point.

"Fine..." Vetak spat. "I highly doubt though that these new arrivals will not appreciate another alien party trying to call for peace between them and the Hierarchy."

Besea nodded in thanks to Vetak and looked to Kalio for his response. "As I said before, we should send the STG in to get more data. In the event that hostilities will ensue, we may get a key piece of information. If they don't, then we may have gained a significant technological advancement without having to negotiate for it."

"Then it is decided." Besea finally announced, "An Asari portion of the Citadel Defense Fleet, spear headed by the Asari dreadnought Devout Grace, will leave immediately to begin negotiations and I will act as the lead negotiator."

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2657.033.005**

**Location: Alien Colony, Unexplored Space Beyond Relay 314**

As the soldiers on the ground prepared for the orbital bombardment, Desolas was in an observation tower looking for the best locations to fire on. Based on orbital scans and ground surveillance, he found four structures in four sections of the city that seemed to be important. Whenever his soldiers got near them, the defenders reacted as swiftly as they would when turians soldiers got too close to the central spire.

"Have the cruiser's target those locations." Desolas ordered, "Then have a pack of frigates perform a high speed pass to weed out the locations of any AA emplacements. Ground based observers will then mark those locations for the next salvo."

"Aye-aye Admiral." His fire support officer replied as Desolas climbed down from the post.

_Only a few more minutes before these animals learn their lesson,_ Desolas thought as he made his way to the communication prefab to make another report for the Hierarchy. So far they had approved his actions, but he didn't know how they would take this. Orbital bombardment of a garden world was not something to be done on a whim, but Desolas couldn't care less at this point. He had several dozen wounded on his hands and only one confirmed enemy dead. If this engagement ended, he had no doubt he would become the laughing stock of the Hierarchy.

He typed up his report and was about to leave when he noticed one of the communications officers repeatedly trying to radio one of the advanced recon elements Desolas had deployed around the outer edge of the city.

"Lieutenant... What's the matter?" Desolas demanded as he stood behind the young Turian.

"I can't raise Element Two Admiral. They have missed their regularly scheduled check in."

"Have you sent in Element Three to check to make sure that it's not just a communicator glitch?" Desolas asked.

"Already done sir, they will be at Two's last known position in a minute."

"Excellent. Keep me up to speed Lieutenant." Desolas offered before leaving.

As he left the comms prefab, his omnitool pinged with a message from the Salarian doctor. Saren was awake from his surgery early, and he was needed.

Desolas sprinted over to the post-op section of the medical prefab, and was greeted by several Turian orderlies being flung back by a biotic push.

"I said... Leave. _Me. ALONE!_" Saren seethed with rage as he used his new prosthetic to punch a sizable dent in a wall next to his bed while the rest of him glowed with a biotic aura.

"Saren Decmas Arterius!" Desolas roared in return, causing Saren to divert his attention to his older brother. "Stand down!" Saren, realizing the situation, feebly laid back in his bed and his biotics died down. "Good. Leave us." The orderlies didn't need to be told twice. "Now then Saren. What seems to be the problem?"

"Nothing Desolas, just my age showing through. I am one of the youngest members to be accepted into Blackwatch after all." Saren tried to blow him off.

"No, it's more than that." Desolas urged.

Saren was quiet for a bit. Finally he answered, "I feel like I failed you and father. I was wounded in action, and now my chances at becoming a Spectre a practically gone."

Desolas did the equivalent of a snort. "That's all? Saren, you are fighting in a conflict that by all rights you shouldn't even be in. You have shown true courage and valor in stepping up and going out with the patrols to give them a fighting chance at taking out these defenders. _You_ have done father and me proud."

"Good." Came Saren's quick reply. "Then use your status as Admiral to get me released from this hospital. You know how much I hate being couped up."

Desolas laughed, "Once the doctor's confirm that your body won't reject the prosthetic-"

"Which he did already."

"- and you get some proper clothes on."

A few minutes later, Desolas and Saren were up on the observation tower. Both eagerly awaiting the coming bombardment. It was the most effective method after all since the civilians had obviously fled the area for the central structure, which numerous scans said was a fortified bunker, then the only other possible casualties would be that of the defending aliens.

"Captain... Begin the bombardment." Desolas ordered. The fire-support officer then turned to his console to issue the commands. As he did, his head suddenly exploded from front to back. Blue blood sprayed onto the back wall of the observation tower, and highlighted the fist sized hole that the sniper round had created even after it went through the fire-support officer's head. With his body falling, the sound of the sniper shot finally caught up to the bullet's action. Reacting on instinct, both Saren and Desolas hit the ground as soon as they heard the plop of the Captain's head go.

Desolas' personal comm device then went haywire as Admiral Suqwal tried to contact him directly.

"DE—LAS! ALIEN FL- IN OR-! - HAVE TO GET OUT! I'M S-RY!"

Even with the static of battle, Desolas knew what was coming. As such, he pulled Saren up with him and jumped from the top of the observation tower to the top of the command prefab a few meters below. From there, Saren had his wits about him once again and they both made for the armory. Saren being the younger of the two was able to pull ahead of his older brother. The sounds of extremely high powered automatic weapons filled the air, with Turian squad leaders attempting to organize themselves to locate the source of the incoming fire and push back.

Just as he reached the armory door, Saren looked back at his brother. Desolas was only a dozen or so meters behind him. What happened next though would be something that would forever be burned into Saren's mind.

Time seemed to slow down as he first heard the on coming rush of air. Then in his peripheral vision, he saw a jet black duplicate of the aliens power armor come flying down towards his brother. A large knife was in it's hand, which it raised back as it continued it's head first dive towards his brother. Before Desolas could even react, the alien was directly on top of him and plunging the huge knife into his neck. The momentum of the aliens fall the transferred fully to Desolas' body, which couldn't take the sudden strain and crumpled loudly as bones were broken throughout it. All the while, the alien rode Desolas' now lifeless body, as the knife had severed the spinal column, down to the ground. Desolas' armor also began to crack from the immense weight of the aliens armor. Finally, blood and guts that had suddenly been compressed beyond belief within Desolas now had a way out, and spurted onto the ground.

With nothing practically under it now, the alien began to stand up without even looking at it's kill. Before Saren closed the door, he was able to make out two things on the armor. The golden emblazoned winged creature, similar to the alien he had killed the other day, held two red stacked circles over it, and something on the aliens collar: "CORDE".

* * *

**MOTHER Network File Access: Granted**

**SUBJECT: BURNING-IN**

**A tactic used by USIF Armored Infantry to enter the field of battle. After boarding a drop ship, they are then flown over the battlefield at unknown altitude in the tens of thousands of meters. From there, they are ejected out of the drop ship via jet propulsion. Traveling at slightly super sonic speeds from exospheric heights requires the constant use of the Patton-Class Powered Assault Armors plasma shielding to allow the Armored Infantry member to pierce the atmosphere in tact. **

**Once launched and into the lower sections of the atmosphere, the Armored Infantry can then guide themselves to a landing zone to avoid any potential incoming fire. Once they are closer to the ground, they can then activate the Assault Armors jet pack to allow for a smoother landing (as well as longer hang time to adjust landing position), or allow themselves to crash into the ground at terminal velocity (Note: The Assault Armor's nanomuscle structure absorbs all of the impact force) to arrive on the battlefield much quicker.**

**There is a third option that members of the infamous 8th Armored (aka Section 8) are known to do. They will delay firing their jet packs until the last few moments so they can either impact an enemy soldier or structure to cause massive damage. Captain Corde of the 8th Armored's 1st Recon has been known to use the same technique but instead of relying on the physical impact to kill his target, will use his combat knife when 'tackling' his target to ensure a stealth kill. This particular maneuver has gained the term 'Corded' amongst Armored Infantry personnel as Corde is one of the few members in the USIF able to perform it proficiently.**

* * *

**A/N: So yeah... This chapter just kept getting bigger and bigger. I know I have seriously fucked with Mass Effect canon with the way I killed Desolas, but it's for a good reason. I also felt the need to try and portray Desolas as that older brother we all wished we had, as that is something I think didn't come across in the comics at all. I also figured that since I was killing Desolas non-canonically, I might as well make it as horrific as possible for Saren to witness.**

**Again I need to stress that this is just an exercise for me to get the idea out of my head, don't expect regular updates. **

**And I'm done rambling...**


	3. Chapter 3

**Evolution: A Mass Effect & Section 8 Crossover**

**Chapter 3**

* * *

**A/N: Be sure to check out the previous two chapters as I did some editing. Rest of my notes for you are at the end.**

* * *

**/Earth Date/ -01.04.2538-**

**/Ship/ –-Battlecruiser USIS Texas, 8****th**** Armored Infantry Division Flagship, Taskforce 33-**

**/Destination/ -–New Shanxi-**

**/Galactic Location/ –5 Parsecs from edge of Star HD149415's system-**

Following newly established protocol, General Stone had the taskforce drop out of their jump early so they were just inside New Shanxi's short range communications. No sooner than had they done so, had a data packet come in from the colony. MOTHER quickly summarized everything Stone needed to know into a few bullet points before it began to analyze the rest of the data more thoroughly.

"MOTHER," Stone looked up from his data tablet, "Give me fleet wide comms."

* * *

**/Dropship Hangar of USIS Texas/**

**/Dropship 341/**

As the newly promoted Major made his way over to 1st Recon's assigned dropship, he was surprised to see Matthews and Reyes talking with Blackburn. 3rd Recon's dropship's were on the other end of the _Texas_, and with 1st Recon now back up to full platoon strength, Major Blackburn could go back to leading his own platoon instead of assisting 1st Recon. Corde was also not used to seeing so many troopers around his dropship.

_The joys of command..._

When Corde neared the ship one of the FNG's, a Captain Hackett as the shoulder pauldron and collar ID showed, shouted "Commanding Officer on deck!"

Instantly, all of the FNG's snapped to attention and saluted. Meanwhile, Blackburn chuckled and Matthews handed Reyes a small piece of metal which Reyes stuffed into a small compartment on his forearm with a smile.

Suppressing a smirk, Corde came right up to the group of newbies, who had assembled into a single line, before speaking. "I'm only going to say this once. At ease." The group of thirteen went to parade rest. Almost all of them were fully geared up, save four who had their helmets visor and HUD plating retracted. "As you all know, I am Major Corde." Corde began to pace in front of his charges, showing them the new paldron's he was given as a symbol of his rank, which stood out on his jet black armor plating. His pacing also served the purpose of gauging their reactions and their demeanor. For the most part, the newbies all held the standard gun metal blue plating, signifying their rookie status, while only a few held officer pauldrons. As he walked by each and every one of them, nearly all of them shifted slightly. The only ones who didn't were again the ones who had their helmets open.

_Hackett... Anderson... Shepard... Coré..._

Corde committed their names to memory. Having gone over every single new addition to 1st Recon service history, he was able to remember that they had stood out then too. Captain Steven Hackett was a graduate of the Imperial Academies newest officer fast track course, and his scores in both planet side and space tactics put him in the same league as the Fleet's seasoned Admiral's and General's. 2nd Lieutenant David Anderson was also a part of that same program, however his skills were primarily in squad combat and platoon leadership. Sergeant Matthew Shepard had somehow managed to score high enough, as well as impress his instructors, in basic training that he was given an early commission as an officer, provided his commanding officer's approved his in-combat performance. Finally Corporal Eva Coré was one of the most brilliant engineers to have gone through the Academy, only being bested by a Kahlee Sanders who she reportedly was close friends with. The four of them together in their own fireteam, being led by Hackett, sure was going to be an interesting thing to watch unfold.

"You are the first troopers to come in and get 1st Recon back up to full platoon strength since I was in your shoes." Corde continued. "While you are _in_ 1st Recon... You have yet to earn the respect of the rest of 1st Recon, both living and dead. We are the tip of the spear that is wielded by the Empire, as such we get the most action, and we see the most brutal side of war you can possibly imagine. We go on missions other platoons would never in their wildest dreams would accept and we accomplish those missions. No matter the cost." Corde turned and walked back to Reyes and Matthews, who had stood up and walked closer to the group of FNG's while Blackburn sat on the sideline. When Corde reached his two teammates, he nodded slightly before turning around. "If you are ready to accept the challenge and danger of being in 1st Recon and earning our respect, step forward."

Corde watched the group very carefully. Hackett, Anderson, Shepard, and Coré were the first to step forward by a fraction of second after he had finished his speech, followed by the rest of the group. Corde nodded in satisfaction.

"Alright then. You all know your fireteam assignments! Get in the bird and get strapped in!" Corde bellowed, which earned a few 'booyahs'. As the newbies walked on to the dropship, Blackburn walked over.

"Well Corde," the familiar Australian accent hit Corde's ears as he turned around to meet his old CO and now fellow Major, "I gotta say that was one helluva speech. Did you practice that or improvise it?"

"Yeah if you keep that up, you'll likely take the General's job," Matthews' own British accented voice chimed in.

Corde just smiled, "A good leader should always speak from the heart."

"I hear you boss," the normally silent Reyes joined in. "It did put the fear of god into those recruits. The four that you eyed up though, back at Fort Soloman they were working together nearly as well as we do even during base clean up from the Spear assault."

"Yeah I noticed that too," Corde looked over at the dropship, and the quartet were checking over the lower ranked recruits for any missing gear or damages that needed attention before they boarded the dropship.

Because of 1st Recon's manpower increase, they had been given authorization to use the latest dropship to be assembled by the _Texas'_ autofab center. The new drop ship held a smaller profile width wise, which it made up for in length and height. The increase in mass though required a second set of VTOL engines to be placed towards the stern end, but the end result was actually a faster gunship capable of deploying a full platoon, sixteen soldiers, in one swoop without having to readjust its course thanks to the droptubes being placed along the belly of the craft. Also added in were improved shielding modules as well as four individually aimed missile racks to aid the dropship in landing and takeoff fire support.

"_Major_ Corde," Blackburn emphasized the new rank, "I have to be heading to my platoon. Maybe I'll see you ground side, then we can compare whose men have the most kills." Blackburn held out his hand to Corde with a smile on his face, which Corde accepted and shook.

"Nothing crazy this time Blackburn like back on Boreas." Corde replied. Blackburn then took his helmet and attached it, letting MOTHER activate the HUD plate and armor plating as he walked away.

Turning back to Matthews and Reyes, he simply nodded before walking towards the dropship.

Hackett was just climbing in as Corde reached the ramp, he too nodded towards Corde before finding his seat. The droptubes were arranged in a four by four fashion, with each fire team taking a row to themselves. The lucky trooper, a Corporal Thomson, was already seated at the far right seat of the first row. Thomson, who specialized in demolitions, was taking the place of Graves who had died on Prometheus. While Corde held no actual dislike for Thomson, Graves had been with him since nearly the beginning of the Outer Rim War. That kind of friendship and trust was not something that could be replaced easily.

Just as Corde pulled on his helmet, MOTHER initiated a fleet wide broadcast from General Stone.

"_Attention members of 8__th__ Armored. We are currently holding approximately five parsecs from New Shanxi. As such we are within range of the fledgling colonies short range transmitters. The commanding officer planet side, Colonel Williams, has relayed to us everything they have found out about the alien invaders. They currently have orbital superiority and a presence on the ground outside the colonies main wall._

_While their technology is of a different class than ours, we have superiority in firepower and tactics as __Colonel Williams' men have managed to hold off the alien's assaults towards the terraforming tower and the MOTHER hubs that have been activated. It has not been without loss, as they have mourned the loss of one soldier thus far._

_With this information and other tactical data sent by Williams, we are going to wipe these aliens off of our colony. MOTHER will inform all of you of the battle plans._

_Remember, we are the 8__th__ Armored and we will __**always**__ protect humanity._

_Stone, out."_

By the conclusion of the General's speech, Corde had strapped himself into his drop harness with his helmet in place. MOTHER began streaming Stone's battle plan to his HUD, showing what would happen on the ground and in space for the upcoming battle. MOTHER also provided what information Colonel William's had managed to gather on the aliens; weaponry, armor, abilities, anything that could be useful.

As he reviewed everything, he felt the ship shudder slightly as it made the FTL jump, and a single thought crossed his mind.

_I feel like lightning and my burden is awesome. I feel like lightning and down I must go._

* * *

**A/N:**

**Alright guys this is going to be a long one. First off, I wish to thank all of you for your reviews, favorites, and alerts. Out of the five fics I've published on here so far, this one has been one of the more popular ones. **

**To clarify, the 'original' 1****st**** Recon members are wearing the all black color scheme that is commonly used in Section 8: Prejudice's single player campaign but retain their officer pauldrons. The FNG's are wearing the typical gun metal blue with any officer pauldrons.**

**The star I mentioned in the beginning location describer is an actual star located roughly a thousand light years away. I used a program called Space Engine to find an appropriate system to mark the edge of USIF territory.**

**On to other stuff. If you want me to respond to your reviews, please don't submit a review anonymously. I do not reply to reviews in any format other than PM replies when I have the chance to.**

**Along those lines, those of you who have put reviews up asking someone else to take over this fic, please remember two key pieces of information. **

**1) I post updates on my twitter (Mitchell_DN7)  
**

**2) I said in the first chapter that new chapters will be few and far between. I have real life to deal with and Evolution is not my primary fic.**

**Even though Evolution is not my primary fic, you would not believe the amount of planning that has gone into it thus far. I have created entire unit breakdowns, fleet structures, rank hierarchies, and a timeline comparing canon Mass Effect to Section 8. All of that is the tip of the iceberg, and I'm not even close to having everything thought out for the plot of this fic.**

**Finally, again as fair warning I do not have any idea when the next chapter will be up. I know this one was short, but it was the best place to end it. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Evolution: A Mass Effect & Section 8 Crossover**

**Chapter 4**

* * *

**A/N: Nothing new really to announce. This is another short chapter simply because I have been working like crazy to get the new version of my Mass Effect/Crysis fic (The Unsung Hero: Redux) planned out. Rest of the A/N will be at the bottom.**

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.04.2538-**

**/Ship/ -Battle cruiser USIS Texas, 8th Armored Infantry Division Flagship, Taskforce 33-**

**/Destination/ -New Shanxi-**

**/Galactic Location/ –5 parsecs from edge of system HD149415-**

**/: MOTHER NETWORK ACCESSED**

**/: INITIATING BATTLEPLAN BRIEFING SEQEUENCE**

**/: SHIP ROLE CALL INITIATED**

**/: TASKFORCE WIDE PING SENT, WAITING FOR RESPONSE...**

**/: BC-TEXAS PING TOTALS, 560 TROOPERS AND EQUIPMENT READY**

**/: MOTHER HUB REPORTS ALL READY**

**/: F-DOOLITTLE MOTHER HUB REPORTS ALL READY**

**/: F-BAUMGARTNER MOTHER HUB REPORTS ALL READY**

**/: F-LEONIDAS MOTHER HUB REPORTS ALL READY**

**/: F-EINSTEIN MOTHER HUB REPORTS ALL READY**

**/: F-HAWKING MOTHER HUB REPORTS ALL READY**

**/: C-TICONDEROGA MOTHER HUB REPORTS ALL READY**

**/: C-ANTIETAM MOTHER HUB REPORTS ALL READY**

**/: C-PEARL HARBOR MOTHER HUB REPORTS ALL READY**

**/: BRIEFING BEGINNING...**

**DUE TO NEW SHANXI'S ORBITAL POSITION AND THE RECENT DISCOVERY OF AN ALIEN ARTIFACT'S ORBITAL POSITION, THE FLEET WILL EXIT FROM THE UPCOMING COMBAT JUMP ON THE DARK SIDE OF NEW SHANXI WHERE THE ALIEN FLEET WILL BE UNABLE TO DETECT OUR ENTRANCE TO THE BATTLE FIELD. ONCE IN REAL SPACE, ALL GROUND ELEMENTS WILL BE DEPLOYED AT THE HORIZON LINE FOR THE ALIEN BASE CAMP. GROUND ELEMENTS WILL THEN PROCEED ON FOOT TO THE BASE CAMP WITH 3RD RECON TAKING POINT. GROUND ELEMENTS WILL THEN WAIT UNTIL AFTER RECEIVING THE GO WORD FROM GENERAL STONE.**

**ONCE GROUND ELEMENTS ARE IN PLACE, THE FLEET WILL PERFORM A GRAVITY SLINGSHOT MANEUVER AROUND THE PLANET TO ARRIVE ON THE ALIEN FLEETS REAR. FROM HERE, ALL SHIPS WILL ARRAY THEMSELVES IN BATTLE FORMATION DELTA WHILE FOCUSING FIRE ON THESE SHIPS DESIGNATED AS FRIGATES. PRIMARY OBJECTIVE IS TO DISABLE OR SEVERELY DAMAGE THE SHIPS, ONLY HEAVY RAIL GUNS ARE AUTHORIZED AT THIS TIME FOR ENGAGEMENT WITH THE ALIEN FRIGATES.**

**IT IS HIGHLY PROBABLY THAT AFTER THE INITIAL SALVO THE ALIEN FLEET WILL HEAD FOR THE ALIEN ARTIFACT, WHICH APPEARS TO BE THEIR FORM OF FASTER THAN LIGHT TRANSPORTATION.**

**ANY FURTHER FLEET ACTIONS WILL BE GIVEN MID-BATTLE BY GENERAL STONE.**

**ONCE ORBITAL SUPERIORITY IS ACHIEVED, GO WORD 'IRENE' WILL BE GIVEN. 3RD RECON WILL SNIPE ANY POTENTIAL HIGH VALUE TARGETS, WITH THE REST OF THE 1ST BATTALION PERFORMING SHOCK AND AWE ACTIONS WITH THE GOAL OF CORRALLING THE ALIENS. WITH THE FIRST SALVO, 1ST RECON WILL THEN BURN-IN TO COMPLETE A PINCER ACTION. PRIMARY OBJECTIVE IS TO SUBDUE AND SUPPRESS.**

**ALL OTHER BATTALIONS WILL SECURE THE GROUND SIDE MOTHER HUBS, ORBITAL DEFENSES, POWER PLANTS, AND LOCATE COLONEL WILLIAMS FOR EXTRACTION.**

**ALL GROUND FORCES WILL BE REQUIRED TO USE NONLETHAL FORCE. USIF GAUSS WEAPONRY IS SIGNIFICANTLY SUPERIOR TO THE ALIENS SHIELDING AND ARMOR. ONLY CONCUSSION ROUNDS ARE AUTHORIZED FOR THIS OPERATION.**

**ONCE THE ALIEN THREAT HAS BEEN SUBDUED, ONE OF THE PREFABBED BUILDINGS WILL BE USED AS A MAKESHIFT PRISON, TRIAGE, AND OPERATING THEATER. THESE ALIENS, ONCE CAPTURED, ARE COVERED UNDER THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS OF 2343 AND WILL BE TREATED LIKE ANY OTHER PRISONER OF WAR. ANY ACTIONS TO THE CONTRARY WILL BE SUBJECT TO PUNISHMENT OF CHOICE BY YOUR COMMANDING OFFICER.**

**END OF BREIFING. GOD SPEED 8TH.**

**/: MOTHER NETWORK ACCESS CLOSED**

* * *

With the battle plan General Stone devised now distributed amongst the fleet, every crew member now had a job to do. Nearly every square inch of all the ships were a flurry of activity as crews readied their battle stations for the upcoming combat. With the strange tactic of using the primary ground support-fire rail guns as the main weapons for engagement rather than the more typical high energy plasma shells, rounds were constantly being fabricated from molten tungsten and instantly cooled moments later with Bose-Einstein condensation. The quick chilling of the external layer ensured that the inside of the shell was brittle and would 'squash' on impact with the intended target, thus transferring its total kinetic energy.

With the extra data provided by Colonel Williams on New Shanxi, the use of the Delta formation for a space battle was also unorthodox as it kept the fleet close together and well within their own firing arcs. US Imperial Navy ships were constructed such that they did not have to rely on other ships for protection and thus had their own impressive point defense arrays. These array's were directly controlled by a ship's MOTHER hub, with each individual gun (configured as a magnetic coil gun to save space) capable of firing two millimeter tungsten bb's at Mach 90 or .001 percent of the speed of light. While the array's are the USIF's fastest firing (both in muzzle velocity and rounds per minute), they were not the strongest.

The USIN's most impressive weapon, the high energy plasma shells (HEPS), were capable of unleashing several megatons in a single round. An exact number has never been found due to how the shells work. USIF scientists and engineers long ago found that attempting to use the magnetic 'bottling' technique to create a plasma weapon was far too inefficient as the energy needed to not only keep the plasma hot and 'flowing' as well as to create and direct a magnetic field large and far out enough was better spent elsewhere.

A shell, made of only a semi-magnetic alloy, would first be highly magnetized, then it would be filled with compressed plasma and sealed. Once it was sealed, it would be instantly fired by the ship or ground based cannon. As the shell traveled it would lose it's magnetism, thus letting the plasma begin to eat away at the shell. However, this is intended as by the time the shell would reach it's target, the shell's integrity would be just weak enough on impact to break open and thus unleash all the plasma directly into that singular spot. This method also ensures that no round ever fired, if it misses, winds up destroying something in the distant future.

The sheer destruction of the plasma being released directly into a target is what makes the HEPS such a hard weapon to create a damage estimate for as it is dependent upon the target's composition and time of impact by the shell. This destructive capability though, was shown to be too wasteful by the first engagement between New Shanxi's patrol frigates and the alien ships. HEPS also were the only keel mounted weapon system in the USIN's arsenal, where as all other weapon systems were turreted to some degree.

Thus, what normally would have been unthinkable for a typical USIF space engagement, would end up being the perfect strategy for the upcoming battle.

* * *

**Citadel Era: 2657.033.005**

**Location: Alien Colony, Unexplored Space Beyond Relay 314**

Admiral Suqwal looked over the casualty list thus far from his dreadnought's ready room. While it had been only three days of real ground fighting, it was staggering the number of Turians that had been injured or killed. It was almost like they were fighting Krogan again, save for the extreme precision and power this new species used in their weaponry.

Setting the report down, he exited the ready room and began to head towards the CIC. While his quarters were close to the ships nerve center, it still took him some time to navigate through the winding hallways and stairs that made up the ship's passages.

Once he did arrive, he immediately took to his chair which sat in the center of the CIC on a raised platform. As he did, the ship's VI scanned his DNA signature and allowed him access to the impressive information suite it displayed in front of him on some translucent holograms. Looking over everything his combined fleet had to report, he sat back a bit and just observed an external camera feed of the planet below. Earlier reports by various science teams showed that the planet was originally an uninhabitable planet until roughly five years ago when the new species had apparently begun to terraform it.

_Five years to terraform an entire planet... What in spirits name have we done?_ Suqwal was never overly religious, it was hard to be when you were a career military man in a military minded society. However, he took a moment to wish to whatever deities there may be that they spare the Hierarchy whatever wrath was intended for them.

"Admiral!" A young lieutenant's voice stirred him from his thoughts. "Admiral Desolas is requesting a ship be allocated for orbital fire-support."

_What are you thinking Desolas!?_ Suqwal took a moment to think about his choices. Firing upon a garden world was a punishable offense by Council laws, let alone a new species that they had just made first contact with barely a week ago. He fully expected any damage done to this world would be exacted a hundred fold upon the Turians. He was also in full rights as the Admiral of the current combined fleet to deny Desolas the fire support if he felt it would endanger the fleet. However, the casualty list came to mind next, and the fact that they haven't even managed to make any head way against the aliens.

"Get one of the cruisers into position," Suqwal ordered. "Does he have any firing solutions yet?"

"Yes Admiral," the same lieutenant replied, keying his omnitool and showing the designated targets painted by Desolas' ground teams. As he spent time looking over the firing solutions, he noticed on one of the holographic displays showing the planet something cresting through the atmosphere, creating a fire like trail behind it. _Just a meteor burning up..._

As Suqwal watched a tactical display of the fleet's movements, he saw one of the cruisers shift its position from the fleet to a higher orbit and angled towards the enemy city.

"Cruiser-124, you are approved for ground support fire mission." one of the fleet combat controllers droned below Suqwal, "Fire command relinquished to ground side command."

"_Roger that Fleet Command. Cruiser-124 is in position and awaiting final targeting information from ground side spotters." _Another voice came through the CIC's PA. _"Standing-"_

Whatever words were going to follow would never be heard as the cruiser erupted into a massive fire ball. The CIC immediately went into battle stations as sensor operators began trying to figure out what happened, if they were being shot at, by whom if they were, and where to return fire.

In the panicked seconds after the initial explosion of 124, another cruiser was lit a flame as numerous rounds impacted it's kinetic barriers, depleted them and scored hits on the hull, severing it's wing mounts and taking the engines out as well.

"LADAR shows an enemy fleet has appeared behind us!" A sensor operator shouted. "Scans show the fleeting numbering as five light cruisers, three heavy cruisers, and _spirits... One Destiny Ascension-__class super dreadnought!"_

Suqwal began barking orders immediately, "Get the fleet evasive and into firing position! Tell the frigate packs to begin strafing their light cruisers while the rest of us focus on their dreadnought!" As he did, he looked over the sensor operators report. The enemy fleet was in a tight formation, the smaller ships all surrounding the monster of a dreadnought in a protective shell and staying close together as if they were doing parade show maneuvers for a crowd at the Citadel.

As his fleet began their emergency maneuvers, three more cruisers were similarly disabled. Suqwal noticed the lack of the alien fleet's use of the energy rounds reported from the previous two engagements. That was filed away as he eagerly awaited to watch the frigate packs unleash hell on the alien fleet in the form of disruptor torpedoes.

What he didn't expect was what appeared to be a literal light show as seemingly hundreds of point defense emplacements lit up and shredded the frigates apart. However, the frigates did not explode. The defensive fire appeared to be accurate enough to only disable the threatening ships.

_They don't want to kill us, they are purposefully disarming us._

"Get me a line to Desolas NOW!" Suqwal ordered. "Order all ships to disengage, the enemy fleet has out-smarted us and has us at a disadvantage! Retreat through the relay!" Once a comm channel was opened up through to Desolas, Suqwal began "Desolas! Alien fleet in orbit! They have us out numbered and out maneuvered! We have to get out! I'm sorry!"

It is a common saying that you would never see a Turian's back in a battle as they never retreat, only fall back to regroup. Suqwal could only hope the same would be said of him and his actions here.

_Spirit's... Help us..._

* * *

**MOTHER Network File Access: Granted**

**SUBJECT: US Imperial Navy Ship Classifications**

**With the emergence of High Energy Plasma Shells and the 8th Armored's Burning-In tactic, space combat took on a different meaning for the USIF. Combat ships have to be able to support their ground forces in every means available from transportation to fire support to equipment provision. That is why each task force in the USIF is centered around one or two battlecruisers.**

**Battle cruisers (BC) are typically 1300 meters in length and provide roughly the same role as the air craft carriers of the 21st century. They are the center of the fleet in that they house most of the Armored Infantry (two battalions worth), dropships, vehicles, deployable equipment pods, and a battalion of Air/Space Combat Fighters. They are also the most heavily armed and armored with a Tri-HEPS cannon, dual light and heavy rail gun emplacements, and a redundant point defense array. In pure space combat, they are the primary anti-ship and fighter deployment center. These fleet centerpieces are commonly named after major states or countries on Earth.**

**While powerful, battle cruisers are notorisouly slow in maneuvers, relying on their thick armor and turreted secondary weaponry to hold them over until they can line up their Tri-HEPS cannons. To make up for this, USIF Cruisers (C) are roughly 700 meters long with Dual-HEPS cannons, singular light and heavy rail guns, yet still retain the dual point defense array. Cruisers also are capable of launching deployables as well as providing heavy ground-fire support from orbit, but only carry a battalion of Armored Infantry and their equipment. Cruisers are named after major battles in Earth's history.**

**Finally, the smallest ships in the current USIN inventory, the Frigates (F) measure in at roughly 400 meters long. True to their 21st century namesake, frigates are the fastest ships with the least armament. Sporting a singluar HEPS cannon, a single light rail gun and a single point defense array, these ships are more so intended to fight off swarms of fighters, ships of similar classification, and provide in atmosphere light ground fire support. While cruisers are capable of atmospheric ground fire support, they are often more useful in space with their Dual-HEPS. Frigates also forgo an Armored Infantry complement for a larger deployable equipment capability.**

**While these are the only three current combat capable classes in the USIN, they have served the USIF well as humanity has spread amongst the stars to numerous colonies. Capable of traversing space at speeds far in excess of Citadel races via access to a layer of sub-space, the USIF is a looming giant to those who would choose to oppose them.**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Space battles? Pfft... Who needs them when you can clearly destroy the enemy on a whim? Let alone disable them at will?**

**I know some of you will be disappointed in my portrayl of this space battle, but it is what it is. I feel that in this situation, when faced with an agressor enemy, General Stone would rather take prisoners to learn what they wanted (as well as to learn more about their technology) than completely obliterate them. A dead enemy can only tell you so much after all.**

**Suqwal on the other hand, better to retreat with as many ships as possible so you have that many more to come back to fight with. Also wouldn't you be freaked the fuck out when you never even detected a fleet coming in and starting to rip your own to shreds?**

**Some of you may be wondering about the Council date. The in game dates of 2157, 2183, etc are all the human gregorian calendar dates. The year I have here in this fic is the Galactic Standard used by Citadel from when the Council was formed by the Asari and Salarians. In canon that would match up with the human year 500 BC. For Evolution though, that matches up with 121 BC. So in short, to the Citadel its year 2657, to the USIF its 2538.**

**Now... Some of you anonymous reviewers have mentioned in your reviews that it has taken me a year to update this fic, or something similar along those lines. I don't know what calendar you go by, but I posted the first chapter to this fic back in late November of 2012, the second chapter was a week or so after that, and chapter three was put up a few weeks ago in February. That only amounts to a period of four or five months.**

**Don't get me wrong I appreciate any and all reviews, but I do ask that you double check what you put down. Again, I only EVER respond to reviews in PM's, never in a new chapter aside from a general response like I just did.**

**Again, I don't know when the next chapter will come out. With the final ME3 DLC out and Crysis 3 beaten, I am working on my primary fic The Unsung Hero: Redux.**

**For periodic updates, follow me on Twitter ( Mitchell_DN7). I usually try to put up a new tweet once a week updating you guys on what I'm doing.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Evolution: A Mass Effect & Section 8 Crossover**

**Chapter 5**

* * *

**A/N: **Insert usual 'real-life-gets-in-the-way' statement here. I am going to use a different style for this chapter to try and cover as much ground as possible while still giving you the proper amount of action and drama. Pay attention to the dates in the scene headers is the best advice I can give you.

Actors I'd cast for these roles:

President Alexander Hall – Leonardo DiCaprio

General William Trezbitowski – Michael Clarke Duncan

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.08.2538-**

**/Planet/ Earth, Pentagon Fortress**

"Commander-In-Chief is on deck!" An armored USIF trooper bellowed out to the Situation Room of the Pentagon Fortress as the leader of the USIF and all her colonies walked in. The generals and admirals in attendance all stood up from the large circular conference table, turned and saluted as the President walked in. President Alexander Hall, being a former USIF trooper, stopped as soon as he entered the room and saluted in return.

"At ease gentlemen," He ordered as he moved to his spot on the table. Alexander Hall, being 42 years old, was the youngest member sitting at the table, and it showed. Standing only six feet tall and 165 pounds, he's in the lower percentiles for human physical attributes in the post-Rebirth era. That didn't sway him from joining the USIF at eighteen, serving two tours, then getting into politics to ensure that the voice of the common human was heard. Having been born on Demeter, the USIF's oldest extrasolar colony, it was seen as a coup by the long standing Earth-born elder statesmen that made up a majority of the Senate. President's ever since the formation of the USIF had all been Earth-born, and as such had massive support from the Senate for their agendas. While the USIF's colonies do have equal say in policy and legislation in the Senate as the Federal Districts of Earth do, it is hard to beat the super block that all of Earth makes up in the Senate. Now two years into his first term, Hall has had to deal with things no other USIF President had to in the past.

"Give me the summary first General, then take me through step by step." Hall beckoned with his hand towards the wall sized holographic screen behind him. The man to his right, General Chief of Staff William Trezbitowski, stood up and walked over to the screen with a datapad in hand. Keying in a few commands, images of radically designed ships of multiple classes, as well as schematics of weapons and armor popped up behind him. Trezbitowski, a tall man even by post-Rebirth standards at six and a half feet, stood square with the screen and his hands clasped behind him.

"Mr. President, my fellow officer's," Trezbitowski's bass heavy voice began, "General Stone and Task Force 33, along with the engineering and colony construction supervision crew of New Shanxi, have made violent first contact with an alien race called the Turians."

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.04.2538-**

**/Planet/ New Shanxi**

With their burn-in maneuver complete just beyond the horizon line of New Shanxi's yet unnamed city and all ground units reporting in, Major Blackburn immediately set up communications with Colonel Williams.

"Colonel Williams, this is Major Blackburn of 8th Armored Division, 1st Battalion, 801st, 3rd Recon, commander of ground forces prepping to counterattack the alien invaders. Do you copy?"

_Heh... Never thought I'd say 'counterattack the alien invaders'._

"_Major Blackburn, this is Colonel Williams. It is damn good to hear that Section 8 of all people have arrived."_

Blackburn smirked at the recognition, "Copy that sir. Do you have updated intel on enemy encampments? The fleet is currently performing orbital maneuvers to catch the opposing fleet off guard and can't provide intel at this time."

"_Affirm Blackburn. Sending data over TACNET now."_

As the data began pouring in, Blackburn immediately saw that the enemy had created their encampment in a way that made assaulting it a difficult prospect. It was set up in layers, with identified critical buildings (communications, armory, etc) in the center, surrounded by rings of other less critical buildings (mess hall, barracks, etc). Add in the constant patrols and numerous scouting posts they had set up around the cities circular walls, and it would be tough to move nearly an entire battalion within attack range without being discovered.

_I didn't get to be a Major for nothing, _thought Blackburn as he maintained contact with Williams to plan out the attack in detail. Of course, working with an ace up his sleeve made the planning that much easier.

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.08.2538-**

**/Planet/ Earth, Pentagon Fortress**

"All right, so what do we know thus far about these Turians?" President Hall asked no one in particular.

Trezbitowski entered a few more keys on his datapad, bringing up a diagram of an atom with no protons, but rather a single electron orbiting around a single neutron. Between the two particles was another, unlabled particle that connected the neutron and electron together. "The Turian's entire technology tree is based on the use of this element, referred to by them as element zero or eezo. Our scientists are still working out how exactly the unknown particle keeps the neutron and electron together, which according to our data the Turians don't know exists, it is thought to have some relation to the Higgs Boson, which we have observed before but never contained long enough to manipulate directly.

The element itself is particularly intriguing. When refined and electrically charged, it allows for the manipulation of dark energy in ways previously thought impossible. Using refined emitters and polarity inducers, they are able to manipulate the dark energy into mass increasing or decreasing fields, and have applied that principle to everything. From their weapons, to how their armor is constructed, to their ship based weaponry, shields, and faster than light travel."

Trezbitowski then pressed a single button on his datapad, which brought up an images of a Turian facing forwards and to the side.

"Thanks to the data we've recovered and our treatment of prisoners, we know more about their biology than their leadership is probably comfortable with. Their skin is metallic in nature, the result of coming from a world with a weak magnetic field. Also, their amino acids are dextro-based rather than levo-based, meaning they can't eat the same food as us. Their blood is blue in color thanks to the presence of hemocyanin. They are similar in stature to post-Rebirth treatment humans, but do not have the same genetic advantages as we do. In short, we know everything we need to in order to devise several contingency plans should matters come to blows."

Trezbitowski took a moment to go to the conference table to grab a drink of water from his glass before continuing, his audience remaining quiet.

"Military wise, they seem to employ the time honored strategy of 'over-whelming combined fire'. As seen on New Shanxi, they will use every element available to them to advance, and even when repulsed they fall back in an orderly fashion. This discipline is clear evidence to our battlefield psychoanalysts, and further backed up by recovered data, that the Turians are from a military minded society. If the USIF were to have faced the Turians before Rebirth, the results of New Shanxi could have been much different."

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.04.2538-**

**/Planet/ New Shanxi**

**/Ship/ Battlecruiser USIF Texas, 8th Armored Infantry Division Flagship, Task force 33**

With all the drop ships, save one, returned General Stone gave the order for Task Force 33 to perform the gravity slingshot around the planet.

"Lieutenant, I want our primary rail guns charged and ready to fire as soon as we exit the slingshot. Target to be designated by me." Stone ordered. The CIC was flurry of activity, every one in their full armor as the whole ship was decompressed to preserve precious power. Amongst the numerous armored bodies, Stone and the huge gold eagle paldrons on his armor made him stand out as others walked around him. Even artificial gravity was turned off, so every one had to make their movements deliberate due to the magnetic boots of their armor. Looking over the central holographic console, which was where he stood whenever a mission was on (as evidenced by the wear mark in the floor plating), he brought up an external camera. Seeing the planet zip by him below allowed him a moment's peace.

_This is what we are fighting for... Humanity's right to live in this universe._

"Exiting slingshot in Five... Four... Three... Two... One... We have enemy contact!" His executive officer's voice counted out and declared over the TACNET. His moment of peace over with, Stone looked over the enemy fleet's positioning. For the most part, they were in a high orbit save for one frigate sized ship that was maneuvering itself to be in orbital bombardment position of New Shanxi's colony.

"Fire on enemy frigate designated B-4 now! Before they fire on the colony!" Stone ordered.

There was no confirmation of his orders beyond the subtle throbbing of the ship's superstructure absorbing the recoil of the dual rail-guns, followed by the enemy frigate in question being gutted clean through before an explosion from some kind of reactor destroyed it completely.

"Frigate B-4 terminated General. Enemy fleet is moving into attack position. Corvettes are forming into packs ." His XO continued, more so for posterity as Stone was able to interpret the data just as fast as he.

"Task force is to maintain formation, prep point defenses but only shoot to disable. We need some of these bastards alive for questioning." Stone calmly ordered. While his voice didn't waver, he did have some doubts about the exact attack range of the enemy's corvettes. Data provided by Colonel Williams showed that it was well within range for the standard USIF point defense system, Stone was more worried about how many shots it would take and how long.

As the escort fleet for the colony construction crews witnessed first hand, the alien's surprisingly fast ships when in packs could easily chew through the heavy armor plating of USIF frigates and cruisers. The Texas having the thicker armor and dual layered point defenses afforded to battlecruisers could take the punishment. It was the other nine ships in his command that Stone was worried about. USIF frigates and cruisers were primarily support craft for the battlecruisers and ground elements of their task force, which required them to be able to enter and exit atmosphere on a whim. Battlecruisers could enter a planet's atmosphere, but it took tremendous planning and maneuvering to execute so as not to expose one section of the armored hull to the ionized/plasmized atmosphere for too long.

Watching the data feed tick down the distance to engagement with the oncoming corvette packs, Stone simply breathed in a steady manner, careful not to betray the image of the General who always knew what he was doing. As soon as the data feed hit zero, the vibrations of dozens of point defense guns firing at the same time spread throughout the ship. Bringing up another external camera, Stone could see the alien corvettes silently gliding past his fleet, their once burning thrusters twisted into unrecognizable shapes by hundreds of tungsten pellets fired at a fraction of light speed.

"Sir! Scans show the enemy fleet is retreating towards the unidentified object at the edge of the system!" A sensor tech exclaimed.

"Excellent." Stone turned around and faced the ground operations comm technician, who was looking at him expectantly. "_Irene_ is go." The tech just nodded and turned back to his post to transmit the mission go word.

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.08.2538-**

**/Planet/ Earth, Pentagon Fortress**

"How does this all relate to the data package that 1st Recon recovered from SPEAR forces last week General?" Hall asked. "That was the original intent of this briefing if I remember correctly."

"That it was sir. After our analysts combed through the data, and compared it to what we have recently found at Shanxi, we now know that prior to SPEAR's disbanding, one of the planets they had 'secured' held a race very similar to one of the races known to the Turians. While they had not yet achieved space flight, and the planet's current galactic position is currently being calculated, we know the indigenous race evolved around eezo that was locally present in the biosphere. SPEAR logs indicate that the planet is already suitable for colonization, and was rich in eezo. Eezo at the time had baffled the SPEAR officers, but they executed their orders nonetheless." Trezbitowski informed the room.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that current estimates place this planet being in proximity or beyond our current sphere of influence?" Hall guessed.

"You are correct sir. We know that the indigenous population was completely pacified and never had made any attempt at space flight, so it is unlikely the Turians or other associated races even knew about them. It is my recommendation that, once we obtain the coordinates, we immediately create a task force to secure the planet for mining of eezo. Even our early estimates and brainstorming by our engineering think tanks are showing a massive improvement in weapons technology, metallurgy, and sub-light speed travel that utilize eezo in some way. That's after only a day's worth of analysis Mr. President."

Hall leaned back into his chair, brought his hands together, resting his elbows on the chair arms, and his head on his fists he contemplated his General's recommendation for a few moments

"Agreed. Start getting the proper ships allocated from other task forces, and have any new ones coming out from dry dock within the coming two weeks crewed and tested for the new task force. If events are heading where I think they are, then we're going to need every advantage we need when dealing with these new elements." Hall then stood up, causing all the other generals and admirals to do so as well. "Gentlemen, I'm sorry I have to cut this briefing short, but as you know with the current circumstances I must do the political half of my job. Trezbitowski, if you would join me so you can brief me and the Senate Committee on the next steps I would appreciate it. Have a good day gentlemen."

With his data pad in hand, President hall left his military aides behind and headed for Senate Hill, to inform the rest of the USIF leadership of the developing situation.

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.04.2538-**

**/Planet/ New Shanxi**

"_Irene confirmed. Your mission is go."_ Those six words were all that Blackburn needed. It had been an hour since the burn in, and everything was in place. Patrol patterns were monitored, snipers put in position, vehicles prepped, and ammo mods double checked.

Keying his TACNET comm to the several fire teams that had taken up sniper roles for this mission, Blackburn uttered a single word. "Execute."

Within a fraction of a second, five different patrol squads were taken out by the snipers.

A second more and all kills were confirmed.

"8th Armored, move out!" Blackburn uttered, "I want 2nd and 4th Recon to maintain sniper duties. Tag targets of opportunity and provide over watch. All remaining battalions, proceed with the battle plan. Once we make firm contact, 1st Recon will be joining us."

* * *

Sitting in low orbit, Corde could feel the familiar rush of stims being applied by his suit, prepping his already finely honed body for combat. The subtle shaking of the drop ship reminding him as always of his childhood, biking down the mountainside by his home on Earth.

"_Corde, it's Blackburn."_ The TACNET comm broke his reverie,_ "Firm contact with enemy has been made. I need you to drop at these coordinates, enemy AA will be neutralized by the time you get in range."_

"Confirm Blackburn. See you in a few." Corde opened up the TACNET comm line reserved for 1st Recon next, "Alright 1st Recon, time to prove yourselves. Earn your armor and place amongst the elite!"

"_T-minus thirty to drop 1st Recon. Good hunting."_ Were the only words that came from the pilot the entire mission thus far. They were followed closely by the drop ship flipping itself over, and the harnesses the entire platoon were strapped into moved them into the launch tubes. Moments later, the outer hatches opened up, showcasing the outline of the city below them, and the tracers from weapons fire being traded between two forces outside the city's walls.

With a burst of jet propulsion, twelve armored soldiers were sent speeding out of the drop ship and into the atmosphere. With their plasma shields activated, they carved white trails through the atmosphere just like a meteor. The MOTHER node in each of their suits used the TACNET to calculate the exact path each of them needed to follow to reach their requested landing zone.

Having launched at an altitude of roughly five thousand meters, the platoon quickly reached the break off point where they could deactivate their plasma shields and right themselves to glide to their landing zone. Nine of the sixteen did at the height of fifteen hundred meters, while the other seven remained ballistic. Six of those seven then triggered their own glide procedures at a height of nine hundred meters. The lone remaining one did not trigger his until he was five hundred meters above ground. At that height, thanks to the tagging of enemies by other troopers already on the ground which was then relayed to all TACNET receivers in the area, Major Corde saw an excellent opportunity to show the aliens who they were dealing with.

As he triggered his own glide procedures, he brought out his combat knife. The same one that had been used to take down Commander Soren and numerous other enemy combatants. As he got closer to the ground, Corde brought his body roughly parallel with the ground and his knife arm back. The adrenaline pumping through his veins made time slow down, he could see his target look up at him in what Corde could only assume was shock. Pushing that aside as his enemy got closer to him, Corde's body tensed up, ready for the familiar action coming up.

When Corde was within arms reach of his target, going near terminal velocity, he swung his knife arm down. It struck true in the aliens neck, a spurt of blue blood hitting Corde's helmet. The alien's body had the unfortunate responsibility of absorbing the impact force of Corde and his armor traveling at insane speeds. SPEAR and ORION armor, which was copied from USIF Patton-class Powered Assault Armor, could easily deal with the impact and keep it's occupant contained within. The alien's armor was no where near as sturdy, as it burst at several locations, spewing forth the alien's internal organs onto the ground below. None of that mattered though as it all was smashed into unrecognizable chunks of meat as soon as Corde and the alien's body fully impacted the ground.

Where the alien once stood, a black armored embodiment of death took it's place, with a widening puddle of blue beneath him.

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.08.2538-**

**/Planet/ Earth, Capitol Hill**

"You mean to tell the Senate Committee Senior Chairmen and women that Imperial Forces have executed aggressive First Contact action against an alien species, of which we know next to nothing about I might add, on a colony world that hasn't even finished it's primary construction!?" An older Latino woman rehashed from her position at the raised platform, beside her sitting five other Senators, each varying in ethnicity and age. These six Senators were the oldest and longest serving in the Senate, and as such were considered to be the general leadership of the Senate. While not necessarily party leaders, their votes and voices carried a great deal of weight. Respect for elders was one thing that humanity learned from the Rebirth, as the older generations had seen impossible things happen in such a short amount of time.

That weight however could sometimes impede the process of democracy. Even though Earth and her colonies are united under the United States Empire, it is actually considered by political science professors to be somewhere closer to a federated republic, where the civilian leadership handles nearly all matters not under military jurisdiction. That fine line has often been toed before, by Senate Command (the Committee of the Senate that has control of the USIF budget and general direction of forces), but it has never been fully crossed until now.

"Senator Feliza, I am aware of our aged First Contact Protocols." President Hall began from his own position, which happened to be seated below eye level to the Senior Committee. "However, given the reports of our commanders in the field, it has become a military matter regarding the events of New Shanxi. General Trezbitowski here," Hall gestured to his right, "Will go over what we know so far of the alien species calling themselves Turians."

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.04.2538-**

**/Planet/ New Shanxi**

Once 1st Recon had landed directly in the middle of the Turian encampment, the rest of Section 8 had a much easier time with their duties. The Turian's were no doubt a fine fighting force where they came from, as none of the USIF troopers ever saw one turn and run. Despite the over-whelming technological and tactical advantage, the Turians didn't break rank even when they saw their own squad mates get entire limbs torn off from close range rifle rounds or just out right knocked out by concussive force of rounds passing by.

Part way into the attack, Major Blackburn ordered those with medical training to hold back from the front lines and begin administering first aid to any survivors they came across. As soon as a private had asked how they were expected to do so, Corporal Coré of 1st Recon had replied that each enemy soldier had a dose of some kind of salve to close up wounds. When asked how she found that out by Corde, Coré replied that she found one of the aliens data pads and a multifunction tool lying around that she was able to hack into, letting MOTHER comb through the enormous amount of data they held.

Eventually, after coordinating troop movements like a dance choreographer, Blackburn managed to get the last pocket of Turian resistance into a large building, which was thought to be their Command and Control Center (CCC, or Triple C). With it surrounded by an entire section's worth of troops and vehicles, Blackburn and Corde managed met up to discuss their next step.

"Blackburn."

"Corde." They greeted each other with simple nods, not taking off their helmets just yet.

Corporal Coré came up next to Corde shortly after and saluted, "Sirs. Going through the data on the alien devices MOTHER and I were able to find language files for not only these Turians but a number of other races and even a galactic standard they have set up between them."

"Great." Blackburn sighed, "That means that we probably just kicked over a hornet's nest."

"Not necessarily sir. MOTHER has forwarded the data to the General for further review, but one piece I noticed was that the Turians form the military and law enforcement backbone of a combined alien government."

"That... Doesn't sound the greatest there Corporal." Cord deadpanned.

"It gets better Major. One of the other races, one of the oldest in their system is one that favors peace amongst all races."

Corde and Blackburn looked to each other and shrugged.

"Alright. Good to know that their entire system doesn't revolve around war." Corde acquiesced. "For now, have you managed to get a translation matrix going so we can ask these remaining holdouts for their surrender?"

* * *

As Saren walked around, he could see the worry and despair in his fellow Turians. He himself had to push back the shock of seeing his brother killed in the most horrific manner possible to join the fight against the aliens. Using his biotics and limited tech knowledge this time around did little to help. The armor these aliens wore was much more advanced than what they previously faced, and it shrugged off every warp and overload he launched at them. Their numbers were outrageous as well, as seemingly an entire battalion had appeared from no where to assault the base.

The command center and the remaining Hierarchy troops occupied was secure for the moment, but they were surrounded. With no portholes to shoot out of, it was only a matter of time before the aliens came bursting through to slaughter them all.

Making his way to the communications center, Saren found the highest ranking officer left, a major, who was trying to raise comms to any forces outside the building.

"Repeat, are there any Turian elements outside of the command post. I need an update now!"

"Sir!" Saren shouted to get the major's attention. "Anyone capable of fighting is already inside. What are your orders?"

The major looked at him blankly for a moment, then smashed his fist into the console, leaving some spiderweb cracks in the glass. "Spirits! There is no way we can fight against the force out there! We don't have the men or firepower..."

"Si-" Saren was cutoff before he could make a suggestion.

"_TO ALL TURIAN FORCES. SURRENDER NOW AND YOU WILL BE UNHARMED, TREATED FOR ANY INJURIES, GIVEN ANY FOOD AND WATER NECESSARY AND ACCOMMODATIONS. YOUR FLEET IN ORBIT HAS RETREATED, AND YOUR BASE OF OPERATIONS BELONGS TO US. THERE IS NO NEED FOR ANY FURTHER BLOODSHED."_

"How is that possible?" Saren and the major both thought out loud. The message had been played in standard Turian, but it was stilted and electronic. Even with the most sophisticaed VI's, it took days for proper language translations to be set up, and even then most species used Galactic Basic when conversing in public rather than their own language. How the aliens had even accessed any data pads or omni-tools that held translation matrices baffled them. Standard Hierarchy encryption was in place on all electronic equipment, and the only encryptions tougher than that were used by the Spectres or Salarian STG.

Before either of them could say anything again, the message repeated once more in Galactic Basic. This time through their omni-tools. As the message continued, switching between Turian and Basic, Saren could see what fight was left in the major's eyes vanish.

"Sir, we can't just surrender!" Saren pushed, "We have a responsibility to the Hierarchy to fight until reinforcements arrive!"

"There is no hope of holding out Lieutenant Arterius. We are in an impossible position. This building has no food, water, or other facilities to sustain us in a siege like manner." The major then made to leave the comm room, pushing past Saren.

"MAJOR!" Saren roared as his superior officer moved past him, towards the outer section of the command building. The major however, just kept moving towards the entrance of the building.

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.08.2538-**

**/Planet/ Earth, Capitol Hill**

"In summary Senators, the entire event surrounding New Shanxi is nothing more than a misunderstanding on both parties parts. Had it not been for the construction crews curiosity and desire to check out anomalous readings at the edge of the system before informing both High and Senate Command, we may never have even encountered the Turians in our lifetime.

On the flip side, the Turian Captain of the flotilla that engaged our own ships was being overzealous in carrying out his duties. The follow up Admirals of the invasion/occupation force had no way of knowing until they made planet-fall that New Shanxi was just nearing completion and had no inhabitants yet."

With that Trezbitowski sat back down, earning a nod and smile from Hall who then stood up.

"Seeing as 8th Armored and Task Force 33 is already on site and 'accommodating' the Turian prisoners of war as well as the unexpected arrival of a peace emissary, I am going to take Task Force 26's _USIF Hephaestus_ and her full compliment of fighters to New Shanxi to begin talks as well as offer repairs to damaged ships as a gesture of good will." As he finished, Hall grabbed his data pad and began to leave the hearing room.

"Mr. President!" Senator Feliza yelled, "The Committee hasn't dismissed this hearing yet!"

As Hall reached the door, he turned around and looked directly into the Senator's eyes. "In case you've forgotten Alicia, this is a military matter. I am the Commander-In-Chief of our forces as well as the head of our entire civilian government, and a third party has shown up at the site of battle between our military forces and an alien threat. Time is of the essence, and I am well within the powers given to me by the Imperial Constitution to do what I will with our ships while going on diplomatic missions. While I am gone, the Vice President will be in temporary command. Good day, and if all goes well you'll be conversing with alien diplomats within a week or two." Without looking back, Hall continued out of the hearing room. Leaving a shocked Senate Committee in his wake, and a smug general on his tail.

* * *

**/Earth Date/ – 01.05.2538-**

**/Location/ Andura Sector, beyond Relay 314**

**/Ship/ ARS _Devout Grace _**

Having spent a full day traveling through the relay system, even aboard a ship as grand as an Asari dreadnought, could get boring sometimes. As such, Councilor Besea was doing biotic exercises in one of the many biotic practice rooms. With hardened and heavily shielded walls, no biotic living or dead could manage to even come close to putting a dent in the room.

Besea worked through her typical routine, Asari Huntress martial arts stressed using every movement in a flowing manner, never ceasing the outpouring of energy in a controlled, precise manner when in a close quarters combat scenario. Throws, lifts, slams, and warps all flew from her fists as she seemingly fought with an invisible army of opponents. With each attack, her biotic aura grew, until finally she expelled all of her energy in a final biotic move she had come up with herself, the nova. With a punch to the ground, it released all of her biotic energy in a wave all around her for nearly seven meters.

Standing up from the maneuver and breathing hard, she could see several of the ship's crew staring wide eyed at her display of power from the viewing deck that was situated a good ten meters above her. She merely smiled at the young Asari maidens and left the room to hit the showers.

After a grueling workout, the feel of an alternating hot and cold shower provided Besea just the proper stimulation to relax her muscles. While she did miss the days of being a Huntress, when her people elected her to be Councilor, she couldn't refuse and wouldn't give up the past two decades for anything. Despite the headaches it's caused.

Feeling rejuvenated from the workout and shower, Besea put on one of her traditional Councilor dresses on and fired up her data terminal. Being a Councilor allowed her to have priority access to the extranet feeds and not have to wait an overly long time to get what she was looking for. Answering messages personally was something she preferred to do as often as she could, but with thousands of messages coming in every minute that all wanted her attention, she used a VI suite to filter through the mundane stuff her assistants could handle.

An hour later, with the priority messages done, a chime came from the terminal, signaling a communication request from someone inside the ship.

"Yes?"

"Madam Councilor." The captain of the ship, _Devout Grace_, greeted her. "We have arrived in the Andura sector, and I think you should come to the bridge."

"I'm on my way."

As with most military designed ships, one could never travel in a straight line to get where one needed. Besea navigated a labyrinth of halls, elevators, and stairs to finally reach the bridge. When she reached it, the captain of the _Grace_ immediately came over to her and bowed out of respect.

"Madam Councilor, thank you for coming up here." The navy blue hued Asari spoke, a hint of urgency and worry in her voice.

"Of course Captain. What is the matter that you requested my presence though?"

Rather than explain, the Captain ushered Besea towards the holocomm terminal, then nodded to another Asari nearby. The Asari technician punched some commands into her terminal, and the holocomm terminal brought forth the image of a Turian Admiral.

"_Councilor. What in Spirit's name are you and your 'fleet' doing here?"_

Besea smiled, "Admiral Suqwal, nice to see you again." She spoke with a hint of sarcasm. "I am here to try and reach a peace settlement with this new alien civilization the Turian Hierarchy has come across and begun violent acts towards."

Suqwal looked aghast, his mandibles simply dropped to their lower position while his jaw also went slack. His face stayed like that for only a fraction of second though, before he continued.

"_I do not believe that to be the best course of action Ma'am. Review this footage and tell me this is a species that even the entirety of the Citadel races could hope to beat."_

Suqwal's image was replaced with a compiled video sensor log that detailed what happened less than a day ago. The tactics, weapons, and monstrous ships used by the aliens in such a precise manner spoke to her.

"I beg to differ Admiral. Notice how they clearly could have annihilated your entire fleet in the opening salvo. Rather they only took action upon the one ship that threatened their world, while waiting until the last possible moment to fire defensively on your frigates. Even then they only disabled them." Besea paused. "I believe these aliens may be more open to peace than you think."

"_I **think**,_ _Ma'am, that we need to establish a fully dedicated fleet here at this relay in case these aliens decide to come through and exact vengeance for what the Hierarchy tried to do once. I have already filed my report, and it's already under way. The new fleet is expected to arrive after five days."_

_Typical Turians. Always thinking and seeing the world through a gun scope, _Besea groaned inwardly. "I see. What are your orders until then Admiral?"

"_My fleet is using what munitions we have to blockade the relay via minefield. Once that is complete, we will have a cruiser remain nearby to provide advance scouting for the rest of the fleet which will be half a system's length away. Any ships that come through the relay without a recognized identification signal will be destroyed."_

"How long until you are finished with your... Blockade?"

"_We'll be done in a few hours."_

"Excellent. Carry on with your duties Admiral, and I will continue with mine." Besea closed the comm link to Suqwal down, then walked over to the comm technician.

The technician's station was set below floor level, and when Besea reached her she knelt down. The young Asari had a look of shock on her face at seeing one of the most powerful Asari in the galaxy kneeling right next to her.

"Hello there Private." Besea began, using her well honed 'pleading Councilor' voice and smile. "If you could activate ship and fleet wide comms for me when I look to you next, I would greatly appreciate it."

"O-of course! Madam Councilor! Ship and fleet wide comms will be ready Ma'am."

Standing back up, Besea simply smiled. Going back to the _Grace's_ captain, she pulled her in close.

"Captain, I know I can't ask this of you, but the future of the entire galaxy may rest on us making peace with this new race. I need your ship to carry me through the relay, potentially face down an alien fleet, then back through and have to face the coming Turian fleet."

The captain smirked. "My ship is at your disposal Councilor. I know what you've done in your military career, and let's just say in the grand scheme of things I owe you one. This is me repaying that debt."

Besea smiled, nodded, then bowed gracefully to the captain. "Thank you. I will inform the rest of our fleet of my intentions.

After making her speech, Besea was pleased that the entire Asari fleet had agreed to continue on their original mission. Seeing as the system they were traveling to via Relay 314 was relatively small, Besea stayed on the bridge through the relay jump and the short FTL jump to it's inner planets, where the alien colony laid.

"Captain! Sensors show ten unidentified vessels in orbit of the alien colony, with an additional ten Turian frigates." One of the sensor techs reported.

The _Devout Grace's_ captain, for her credit, took it in stride. "Any classifications on those alien ships?"

"Yes ma'am. They number as follows: Five light cruisers, three heavy cruisers and one... Goddess!"

"Corporal! One what?" The captain demanded.

The sensor tech swallowed, "O-one Destiny Ascension class super dreadnought."

The entire bridge, which had the usual hustle and bustle noise of Asari doing their duties suddenly stilled. The Destiny Ascension was the pinnacle of Asari astroengineering, having been in service for nearly two thousand years and requiring very little in upgrading as the years went by. Of course the Ascension was also one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by the Asari, who haven't produced a dreadnought of that size ever since. To see a race besides themselves using a ship of similar qualification took a lot of that pride out of them.

Besea though saw it differently, and acted. "Lower power out put as much as possible. Barriers to minimum as well. We want to look as non-threatening as possi-"

"_ATTENTION ASARI VESSELS, YOU ARE ENCROACHING UPON SOVEREIGN UNITED STATES IMPERIAL TERRITORY. LEAVE NOW, OR RISK BEING FIRED UPON."_

The message broadcasted through out the ship's intercom in electronically stilted, but accurate, High Thessian. Out of the three main languages used in Citadel space, the Asari language of High Thessian is often considered to be the hardest to grasp. As the Asari evolved from hunter-gatherer tribes with their own languages into a galactic force, they never quite lost that tribal nature in their language, as each cultural area on Thessia used High Thessian as the base but used their own syntax, inflections, slang, and just about every other variation possible in their day to day speech. Documenting each different version of just High Thessian has been an ongoing process for the past two hundred years by numerous classes of anthropologists and linguists at the University of Serrice.

"Captain..." Besea quietly spoke, "Please tell the other ships to drop back a fair distance from us, and continue our course."

"Of course ma'am."

As thoughts raged in her head, Besea could only hope her plan worked. Once the _Grace's_ captain informed her of the fleets other ships dropping back, she turned to the communication station technicians.

"Give me an open broadcast, try to use the same frequency as the one used to send us a message." Her request was carried out with no acknowledgment. A tense minute later, and one of the technician's nodded to her.

"Ready when you are ma'am."

Nodding to the captain, Besea took a step forward, putting her self forward, but not directly in front of the captain, then activated her omnitool to broadcast on the ship's communication array.

"To the members of the nation who call this world their colony, you have us at a disadvantage. You already know our language and of our people's name." Besea swallowed and took a deep breath before continuing. "What you do not know is that I come here as an emissary of peace. The Turians have wrongly attacked you, and you responded in kind. I merely wish for an end to all violent actions between you so we all can learn from each other, and hopefully in time improve ourselves."

As Besea ended her transmission, she and no doubt countless other Asari prayed to the goddess Athame that the aliens would see reason.

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.10.2538-**

**/Planet/ Shanxi**

**/Ship/ ARS _Devout Grace _**

Time can be a tricky thing. Especially when the ship you and countless other people occupy is ordered to maintain a strict geosynchronous orbit in range of what could only be devastating anti-orbital ground based weaponry.

After Besea had ended her message, the only response which again came from a synthesized voice, was for them to await further instructions. Several hours then passed before they were told to move and hold at their current position. After a day had passed, they received word that the aliens representative was en-route for talks with her.

That had been three days ago. Thankfully, the aliens did send them some very basic information on themselves for her to go over. Nothing ground breaking, just that they called themselves humans, their home world was Earth, they were completely united under a United States Empire which itself was a misnomer as it's outline read more like the Asari Republic's electronic democracy. There was no other information beyond the extremely basic though.

_Most likely so as not to come into talks on an even footing_. Speculations between Besea and the _Grace's_ captain led them to believe that the human's had managed to confiscate some Turian omni-tools, of which all makes and models held the translation matrices for all Citadel races. Add in some extra data recovered by them from Turian ships, and they most likely had a very clear picture of what the Citadel Council races were like.

While it wouldn't be the first time Besea had been on the wrong end of a nathak in a political meeting, this circumstance was completely different. Never had she played negotiator with not only her life on the line, but an entire fleet of Asari. Possibly even millions or billions more lives if the entire discussions were ruined like an elcor trying to dance in a club.

As she pondered her approach while sitting at her cabin's desk, like she'd done dozens of times already, a soft chime came from her omni-tool. Reading it revealed that her presence was requested on the bridge by the captain.

A short while later, and Besea once again stood by the captains chair.

"What's going on Captain?"

"We received a message from the human's. It read 'Observe. One light second bow-ward. Fifteen Earth standard minutes. According to our conversions, you arrived with a minute or two Citadel standard to go." The captain informed her, her own curiosity not showing in her voice.

"So, the humans have something they want to show us..." Besea mused out loud. "I can only guess it's the arrival of their diplomat. What else would they call our attention too? They haven't said a word since we moved our fleet into orbit."

"My thoughts exactly Councilor." The captain pulled up her omni-tool, it's screen counting down to the appropriate time. "What ever is going to happen will occur in five... Four... Three... Two... One..."

All eyes on the bridge moved to the holographic screen at the bridge front, which showed an external camera's view of the space in front of the ship. Right on time, a swirling mass of some kind of energy appeared, growing in size until it dwarfed the _Grace_ itself. Sensor alarms went haywire from trying to log all the information of the event in front of them. That paled in comparison when a ship began to emerge from within the energy field.

Sensor's measured it to be at least as wide as the _Grace_, but could not measure it's length as it kept coming out from the portal. When it passed the documented length of the human's biggest ship, that's when Besea knew something historic for all members of the galaxy was about to occur.

* * *

**MOTHER Network File Access: Granted**

**Subject: Pre- and Post-Rebirth Humans**

Prior to the climatic upheaval period known as Rebirth on Earth, humans of the 2400's were not that much different from the previous generations from four to five hundred ago. Average male height being around five foot ten inches (1.789 meters) and women averaging five foot five inches (1.648 meters) with average weight being around one hundred ninety pounds (88 kg) for men and one hundred fifty pounds (66 kilos) for women. The main reason for this stagnation in average size of humanity was primarily a lack of advancements that allowed for the proper combination of skeletal, muscular, and other tissue growth that came over previous centuries.

During the Rebirth period, where humans on Earth had to once again fight to survive, genetic manipulation allowed for artificial increasing of human abilities, maxing out what nature already provided, and providing the best possible base for future generations to build upon. It was discovered by Imperial geneticists that a person's DNA holds information that limits the maximum potential for their body to achieve, that normally without going through extreme conditioning would be impossible to achieve. These 'superhuman' abilities, thanks to a Imperial designed retrovirus, could be activated over a period of time, gradually increasing a person's natural abilities (speed, reaction, healing time, etc) and thus allow them to survive the hell scape that had become Earth.

Once the Rebirth ended, 98% of all humans on Earth had either been given the genetic treatment, or were offspring of those who had taken it. These post-Rebirth humans with their superior abilities, and technology forged during the Rebirth, were seen as vastly superior to any of the humans in the colonies and thus began the Empire's path to get every human injected with the treatment, which has since been coupled with a permanent immuno-booster to increase health. Due to the length of time it takes to administer all the doses of the retrovirus, the Empire has only completed treatment for around 65% of all humans under USIF domain.

Currently, the average human male (post-Rebirth classification) now comes in at an average height of six foot two inches (1.879 meters) and two hundred pounds (90.7 kilos), where as women come in at an average of six feet even (1.8288 meters) and one hundred seventy five pounds (79.37 kilos). This puts humanity on, if not above, par for physical comparison's to Turians. Krogan and Elcor still drastically outweigh humanity, but Krogan are roughly at eye level with humans.

* * *

**MOTHER Network File Access: Granted**

**Subject: Battlecruiser - Mobile Construction/Repair Dock _Hephaestus_ (BC-MC/RD)**

The _USIF Hephaestus BC-MC/RD _is the only ship of it's class within the US Imperial Navy. Coming in at over 1600 meters long, _Hephaestus_ is the USIF's response to any heavily damaged ships in need of repair that can't make it to a dry dock. It is not a combat capable ship in any sense, but does contain a full battalion of fighters (45 flights, each comprised of four squadrons, each squadron having four fighters for a total of 720 fighters) as well as a triple layered point defense array.

While it is incredibly long, it's total tonnage is less than a battlecruiser as the _Hephaestus_ is designed in a horseshoe shape, allowing it to bring any other ship between it's arms (which make up for approximately 1400 meters of it's length), which then act as rails for heavy duty cranes for moving of material. When working at full capacity, the _Hephaestus's _twelve cranes and massive engineering crew can construct a brand new battlecruiser within eight weeks. However, raw materials have to be brought to _Hephaestus_ in order to keep the pace going. With it's on board suite of refinery, smelting, welding, and forging centers, the _Hephaestus_ can 'eat' several hundred thousand metric tons of material in a week. However, most systems where the _Hephaestus_ travels do not have the mining facilities nor the capability to move such quantities of material in a timely fashion. In reality, _Hephaestus'_ best time for completing a battlecruiser has been thirty two weeks.

* * *

**MOTHER Network File Access: Granted**

**Subject: Ship classification – Citadel vs USIF**

Due to the nature of differing technological development between the Citadel races and humanity, the ship classifications each party uses do not match up in the physical sense, while their military roles are much the same.

An easy to remember rule of thumb is that a USIF ship is one class above a Citadel ship. For those more interested in exact naming and classifications according to size, please refer to the following chart.

Ship Size (meters)-Citadel-USIF

10 to 25-Fighter/Bomber-Shuttle

25 to 75-Corvette-Fighter/Bomber/Dropship

75 to 100-Light Frigate

101 to 200-Frigate-Corvette

201 to 299-Heavy Frigate

300 to 450-Light Cruiser-Frigate

451 to 599-Cruiser

600 to 799-Heavy Cruiser-Cruiser

800 to 1000-Dreadnought/Carrier

1000 Super-dreadnought-Battlecruiser

* * *

**A/N:**

Well. I hope you enjoyed this extra long chapter. If I hadn't been careful, this chapter could easily have ended up being over 10,000 words long. Prior experience has shown me that editing chapters that long is simply not worth it, nor is the wait in posting them. I apologize for the ship classification chart not being the most readable, FF's auto formatting takes away a lot of freedoms in regards to that kind of thing.

As for my explanation for element zero's make up, I did some research and it seems to make the most sense that it would have a relationship of some kind to the Higgs field and Higgs Boson. I chose to have it be one neutron and one electron for that sheer shock of it being an impossible by normal understanding thing to occur.

Now for a real piece of news. I appreciate all reviews, I sincerely do. However, when anonymous reviewers ask me when I'm going to update, I get slightly ticked off. I have said it in earlier chapters, in my other fics, and have it posted on my FF profile that I have a Twitter account (Mitchell_DN7) that I use to update you all on my writing progress.

However, given the scope of Evolution and my other fic The Unsung Hero: Redux, I have been considering putting together a website. There, I will post updates, as well as logs of old codex entries for each fic, and anything else that is relevant to my fics.

All you have to do to let me know which you prefer is go to my profile and vote on the poll I set up. Simple as that. I will keep the poll up through the month of May. June 1st it is coming down, so be sure to vote!


	6. Chapter 6

**Evolution: A Mass Effect & Section 8 Crossover**

**Chapter 6**

* * *

**A/N:** Yes I know it's taken me forever to get this chapter up. No real excuse beyond rewriting a section over and over again until I was happy with it. That and I made a model of the _Hephaestus_. Instructions to see it will be at the bottom.

Just a reminder of who I'd cast in these roles:

President Alexander Hall – Leonardo DiCaprio

General William Trezbitowski – Michael Clarke Duncan

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.10.2538-**

**/Planet/ Shanxi**

**/Ship/ **_**USIF Hephaestus**_**, Estate Room**

"Sir, we are approximately thirty minutes from subspace exit." A corpsman informed President Hall, before he saluted and left the room. Hall, currently sitting down at his desk, got up and began walking around. Sitting opposite him was General Trebiztowski, who stood up at the same time and watched Hall pace around.

"Something bothering you sir?"

Hall looked back at his general and smiled. "Not everyday that you meet with alien representatives." Walking back over and around the desk, he sat back down and fidgeted with some datapads. "Let's go back over what we know."

"Of course sir." Trebiztowski turned towards the office's wall, and tapped it. The entire wall turned into a huge datawall, blank for the moment. "Where would you like to start sir?"

Folding his hands together, Hall leaned back into his plush chair contemplating his options for a moment. "Let's start with an overview of the Council races."

Tapping the datawall brought up a range of options, from which Trebiztowski chose one. The wall brought up several groupings of information, each of which was highlighted by a central image of a different race. Trezbitowski tapped the closest one to him and it enlarged itself, covering the others as it brought up more images and diagrams.

"The Turians are a military based hierarchical society, every one of them enter their military at age fifteen and they train for a year before going active duty. Most serve until the age of thirty, at which point they typically enter some form of public service. Turians are known for having an extreme sense of public service, honor, and self sacrifice. These virtues of theirs are the likely origin for hostility between us." Trebiztowski began. "In the Citadel galactic scene, the Turians are the primary peace keeping force with the largest standing military. They have a race of merchants called the Volus under their protection. The Volus crafted the the Citadel's galactic economy and standardized all Citadel associate races to the credit currency."

Hall studied the vast amount of information quickly, "Turians, primary military for Citadel, aggressor at Shanxi, got it." Quickly tapping his own datapad, Hall brought up the information for the Asari on the datawall. "Let's talk about these Asari women next."

Trebiztowski smiled, "As you've probably read sir, the Asari are a mono-gendered race, capable of having children through a form of parthenogenesis with seemingly any species. Asari are widely considered the peace keepers of Citadel space as well as the most adept biotic users."

"Biotics..." Hall interrupted Trebiztowski, "That's the strange ability that our men reported being used in the field against them correct?"

"Yes sir, it allows any person with element zero nodules and enough training to manipulate the mass of a local object as well as other attacks."

Hall leaned back in his chair, contemplating something. "Have our researchers discovered a means to get our own soldiers the same ability?"

"Nothing yet Mr. President. The entire USIF genetic engineering and development department has shifted it's focus from producing more Rebirth injections to studying the potential effects of element zero exposure on human DNA."

Hall swiped his hand across his datapad, and the relevant information on element zero came up on the wall. "What do we know specifically about this new element?"

Trebiztowski smiled, "That we do have more information on. This mornings data burst from the Imperial Engineering Grounds & Foundries on Luna has revealed some interesting weapons tech improvements." Swiping his own hand over the datawall brought up schematics of the standard USIF weapons paired with schematics that looked nearly identical save for the addition of a couple capacitors. "By adding in our own mass effect field generators and modifying our gauss rails with a galavenium overlay to accommodate a massive increase in voltage, every gauss based weapon in our inventory will gain a substantial damage potential increase."

"Can you give me specifics?" Hall asked, "Hard weapon data I could potentially use in upcoming uh-, negotiations." Hall finished with a smirk on his face, which caused Trezbitowski to laugh deeply.

"I understand sir," Trebiztowski replied as soon as he regained his composure. "Our weapons will all double their muzzle velocity, becoming high-hypersonic projectiles but without any significant weight added. Every gauss weapon in our arsenal could potentially see a 400 percent increase in pure kinetic energy output. That actually brings up the last primary species in Citadel space." Trebiztowski brought up one last section of information.

"The Salarians are viewed as the scientific and covert operations of the Citadel. Visually similar to the Martian Grey's popularized in the 20th and 21st centuries. Their population is almost 90% male as they are amphibian haplo-diploid egg-layers, in that only fertilized eggs produce females. As such, their 'Dalatrasses' rule their clans. Due to their natural proclivity towards covert and intelligence ops, any dealings we might have with the Salarians will require a deft touch."

"So in all it'll be like an average day dealing with the Senior Senate Committee." Hall joked. Checking his watch, Hall stood up and straightened out his suit. "Well my friend, I do believe it's time to greet our new galactic neighbors."

* * *

**/Earth Date/ –01.10.2538-**

**/Planet/ Shanxi**

**/Ship/ ARS _Devout Grace _**

After the sudden appearance of the monster ship, Councilor Besea and the _Grace's_ Captain quickly convened together in her ready room.

"Initial scans from our sensors describe the massive ship that just appeared as being a mobile shipyard. The other ships of the orbiting fleet have towed the crippled Turian Frigates inside of it's yard arms." The captain began.

"How many frigates did these humans manage to cripple?" Besea asked.

"Twelve Miss Councilor. All were crippled in the same way, uncountable perforations in their engine pods and engineering areas."

"And all twelve frigates are being repaired simultaneously?"

"Yes, the ships are arrayed perpendicular to the mobile shipyard, designated from now on as Omega-1, right by cranes that extended out from the ship. Clearly this race has mastered feats of engineering we thought to be impossible, as Omega-1 has actually begun to move out towards the systems asteroid belt with the Turians ships with it. Our best guess is that they are going to mine materials at the same time."

Besea looked over the scans of the ship, noting it's architecture. It held curves that reminded her of Asari ship designs, but despite that it also held an inner ferocity that clearly said to stay away from it. Moving her hands over the wall mounted data screen, she zoomed in on the bow of the ship. It held a very large indentation in it, that until now didn't make sense.

"Captain, have our ships monitor as best they can how Omega-1 operates, I believe that it also doubles as a mining and refinery plant to aid it's construction crews. I wish to see how exactly they go about mining asteroids."

"Yes Councilor. I just wish that these humans would do something soon besides make us wait." The captain grumbled.

Besea switched to a live feed of Omega-1, with it's engines now pointed towards the _Grace_ she could see the Turian ships being repaired by what appeared to be hundreds if not thousands of specs. Unable to increase the zoom or resolution, she had to set that curiosity aside as she saw a much smaller ship, perhaps a frigate, leave Omega-1 and make for one of the _Ascension_ class sized ships orbiting the planet. Despite having no mass effect drive to aid it, it made the trip, a distance of a couple hundred thousand kilometers, in about twenty minutes. At that speed, none of the Asari vessels could get an accurate scan of the ship, but what was gathered painted a vessel that looked to be built for speed, with an elongated main fuselage with two obscenely large engine pods built into it.

Besea smiled to herself, knowing the game being played by these humans. "Captain, prep a shuttle with an escort of the five best Huntresses on board. Have them wear the good commando leathers, no weapons besides pistols with those in plain sight."

The Captain was about to argue when the ship's intercom piped up, "_Incoming message from the humans Councilor and Captain. Video and audio."_

"Please route it to us in here if you will in a minute." Besea replied as she quickly looked in a mirror to be sure her facial tattoos were properly touched up and smoothed out her dress before waving her activated omnitool over the ready room's desk and tables. The lights dimmed slightly as the desk and table retracted into the floor and the data screen she was admiring Omega-1 on turned blank. Moving so she was standing in the center of the screen, she took a deep breath, held it for a second, then let it out before smiling. All the while, the _Grace's_ Captain stood off to the side, out of view.

A few seconds later, and the data screen changed from blank to the image of a large winged creature holding two lightning bolts in it's claws, three stars arrayed around its head, all of which was surrounded by an outline of a shield. Before Besea had a chance to try and interpret any subtle meanings from it, the image changed to that of a conference room, where a number of armored human soldiers stood at the outside edge of a table, the head of which stood two unarmored humans along with a third whose helmet was off. The distance of the three humans at the desk from the sending visual recorder was too far to note distinct features, but one thing that was patently obvious was the fact that humans bear an extremely close resemblance to the Asari. Before the shock could set in, the human at the center of the trio stood up, the other two standing along with him.

"_Welcome Councilor Besea to New Shanxi. A newly founded colony of the United States Empire, the governing and military body for all of humanity. I am the Empires political and military leader, President Alexander Hall."_

For the first time in a long time, Besea was stunned to near speechlessness. The humans either had mastered Galactic Basic in an impossibly short amount of time, or they had extremely sophisticated real time translation programs running. She could see no visible technology on the human who spoke, but that didn't mean anything necessarily.

Once she got a hold of herself, Besea replied also using Galactic Basic. "Thank you President Hall for coming out to meet me. I feel I must apologize for the actions that have taken place here on your sovereign ground. The Turians in charge only meant to prev-"

"_Prevent another Rachni_ _type incident. I understand Madam Councilor. I also realize that the Turians did not understand what exactly they have done by attacking with out having all the facts. The simple truth of the matter is that they have gotten off easy."_

Besea was not off to a good start. Not even five minutes into meeting this new race for the first time, and they already knew more about Citadel space and it's history than some school children did. Add in the human leaders rudeness in interrupting her told Besea that this new race would likely cause numerous problems down the road.

"The actions taken thus far need not go any further President Hall." At this point, while she could clearly see that the humans were similar in build to Asari, she could not make out the fine details of the human leader as his position was simply too far from the camera. "I have come here to negotiate a permanent cease fire between your people and the Turians. I feel there is much we could learn from each other if peace was allowed to flourish."

The human leader took a moment to consult with the other unarmored human, who held a much larger frame and very dark skin tone to him, for a moment before leaving his position and walked forward towards the camera. As he did, Besea could finally start making out the fine details of his face and build. Had they met under different circumstances, Besea could see her self falling head over heels for this human. Well defined jaw line, energetic gait, expressive blue-green eyes, and what looked like well kept brown fur on top of his head, that also surrounded his jaw and upper lip. Besea managed to get herself under control as President Hall finally stopped at a distance so that his chest and head took up most of the screen.

"_Madam Councilor, let me get one thing clear here. Humanity has been exploring the galaxy by itself for the past few hundred years. We've colonized dozens of worlds, our total population is rising by the tens of millions every year, we've made technological discoveries that would cause the whole of the Salarian Union to die from utter shock. Humanity in short, does not need the Council to make any advancements with element zero or mass effect technology. Which if my experts are correct, would only serve as a stepping stone to greater discoveries, not become one in and of itself as it has for you._

_In the short time this conflict began, we have learned of your entire history, technological developments, societal norms and taboos, and your tendencies. It is my belief that the Council, by your desire or not, would seek to limit humanity's growth by outlawing our own technological development while at the same time increasing your own by forcing us to give you technology we discovered, invented, and perfected. It is my __**personal**__ belief that technological advancement gained by sharing is not advancement at all._" President Hall took a moment for that to sink in, which Besea needed as she could barely comprehend the long lasting implications.

"_However, that does not mean the United States Empire will not have diplomatic relations with the Council._" Besea let out a breath she didn't know was holding before Hall continued. "_To that end, provided you are able, __all Turians now on Shanxi, dead or alive, will be returned to the Citadel on your ships. We have provided the best care possible to them, short of psychiatric care. The ships that we have damaged will be repaired to their original specifications with their power plants and engines upgraded with our most basic technology. From there they will be sent directly back to Palaven once repairs are complete._

_It is the mind of the United States Empire that all hostilities between the Turian Hierarchy and ourselves are now at an end. Any further aggression will warrant equal or greater response on our part upon the aggressor, regardless of impact it will have on Citadel politics. What the Turian forces experienced here at Shanxi is only just a taste of what our military is capable of. I would suggest you have your Salarian Special Tasks Group analyze what ever data that has been collected, and increase it's projected results by a factor of ten._

_Once the Turians planet side have been transferred to your ships, the _USIF Texas _will accompany you back to the Citadel where talks will take place between the Council and the Empire. Further talks, if deemed necessary will from that point on take place in the Empire home system."_

When Hall ended his speech, Besea was surprised to say the least. The humans wanted little to no compensation for the destruction of three of their ships, the damage of property, or resources lost due to the Turian assault. Instead, they were willingly giving up prisoners of war, who they treated, as well as repairing the ships they damaged. With minor upgrades to boot.

"That... Is very generous of you President Hall." Besea managed to get out after a short pause. "While the other members of the Council would not appreciate such a speech, I am sure they will agree that peace and some diplomatic relation is better than all out war."

At the mention of 'all out war', Besea heard a deep rumbling laugh, joined by a slightly higher chuckle. Hall turned around, spoke a few words that did not translate through the video feed before turning back to face her with a slight smirk on his face.

"_My Chief of Staff and the general in command of the forces here at New Shanxi just said that you're __idea of 'all out war' is nothing compared to what humanity has inflicted upon it self in nearly seven thousand years of written history. Believe me when I say this Madam Councilor. Our military uses technology and tactics that every military power in Council __**and**__ Terminus space would wage war over to get."_

"Forgive me, but I did not mean to imply anything other than peace is the preferable solution."

President Hall smiled widely, "_Excellent then. Now, I'm sure you and the crews of your fleet there are anxious to get out and stretch their legs. Have your captains arrange for the arrival of numerous ships. Your crews will be permitted to go planet side in shifts for the remainder of the solar day which is for another,_" Hall glanced off screen quickly, "_Twelve Citadel Standard Hours. While there isn't much at the moment on the surface beyond living facilities and basic recreation areas, planet side is always relaxing after being on board a ship for an indeterminable amount of time. I will meet you and your own escort at these coordinates while the rest of your crews can relax at these coordinates._"

That piqued Besea's interest a bit, "May I ask the purpose of this?"

"_Well._" Hall began, taking a deep breath. "_If there are to be diplomatic relations between our people, I would think that we need to sit face to face and talk about things other than just politics, don't you agree?_"

_What strange mannerisms these humans have..._ _First they are firm in their demands, confident bordering cocky on their military strength and experience, then down right overly considerate._

Putting on a wide smile, Besea answered, "I would be delighted to accompany you President Hall."

* * *

**MOTHER Network File Access: Granted**

**Subject: USIF Rolling Equipment Upgrade Procedures**

The _Patton-_class Powered Assault Armor currently employed by the 8th Armored Division of Task Force 33 are the latest in Imperial weapons technology, utilizing the newest 'clean' power source available: anti-matter. The previous generation, the _Sherman_-class, utilized the latest in cold-fusion and is the most common amongst the USIF troopers. The biggest difference between the classes is in the effective shield strength/duration and speed of the nanomuscle fibers, in which the _Patton_ out performs the _Sherman_ by a factor of five.

The USIF's REUPs currently place complete distribution of the _Patton_-class at one year's time. Currently, beyond Task Force 33, only Task Forces 1 through 15, and 26 through 28 have received the _Patton_.

* * *

**MOTHER Network File Access: Granted**

**Subject: USIF Task Force Composition**

The USIF has it's main military force divided into Task Forces, with only a quarter of them being kept at full military preparedness. The others provide vital roles for the protection and expansion of the Empire.

Task Force 1 – 15: These Task Forces are the dedicated Earth Federal District Defense Corps. Even though Earth in the Post-Rebirth era has become a verdant garden world once again, there are still groups that seek to destroy the unity that has been fostered over the past few centuries. Task Forces 1 through 15 are dedicated to protecting all innocent lives on Earth from such extremists. While they are not the main police force, they do act with their own jurisdiction much like the U.S. Marshall program of the 20th and 21st Century. Their authority in matters relating to the capture of criminals and protecting the peace is only matched by each Federal Districts Special Agent divisions, which exercise the same authority within their own district.

Task Force 16 – 25: With the need for more and more resources to fuel the ever running Imperial industry worlds, these ten Task Forces are dedicated to scouting out, terraforming, and establishing colonies for the Empire. Staffed by thousands of engineers of every specialty imaginable, these men and woman are responsible for the majority of a new colonies breathable atmosphere, pre-built buildings and defense structures, as well as mapping out the best mineral deposits for incoming colonists to mine. Each colony has a huge head start thanks to these Task Force's work. With an emphasis on construction, each Task Force only holds the minimum number of combat trained troopers required by law. These troopers themselves are typically combat engineers who consult with the civil engineers to provide the best defensive lay out possible for a colony.

**Addendum: **Task Force 19 was the force in charge of prepping New Shanxi and the ones who faced the Turians on the ground for three days. While minor to severe wounds were inflicted later on by the Turians biotics and tech capabilities, only one trooper died in action on the ground. The three cruisers destroyed by the Turians held altogether a total of 1400 lives. The Turian Hierarchy has yet to disclose their number of wounded and dead from the action at New Shanxi.

Task Force 26 – 33: Should the Earth or any of her colonies come under attack, these task forces will be amongst the first to go into battle. These men and women receive the best training and equipment as it passes testing by Task Force 33 - 8th Armored Division (aka Section 8). They train in every type of environment possible to perfect their art form. Each of these Task Forces have been assigned special tasks and mission to accomplish the the Empire, and they fulfill these duties with no questions asked.

_Task Force 26 & 27- 1st & 2nd Armored Infantry Divisions:_ Besides Task Forces 1 through 15, these are the only other Task Forces that maintains a permanent presence within the Solar system. Based on Luna, they operate the massive ring station that encircles the moon which acts as the second to last line of defense for Earth. TF-27 operates strategically placed early warning systems throughout the system and the asteroid belt, monitoring any incoming asteroid, meteor, or ship traffic. Exact numbers on fleet or trooper composition has never been released to uphold the operational security required by such a mission.

_Task Forces 28, 29, & 30 – 3rd, 4th, & 5th Armored Infantry Divisions:_ These Task Force's are tasked with the patrol of all Empire space, checking in on colony garrisons and bringing supply shipments. While not the most exciting posting in the Empire, these Task Forces are vital to keeping the Empire running smoothly.

_Task Force 31 - 6th Armored Infantry Division:_ If the USIF were ever to face a situation that required immense defensive measures, TF-31 would be called upon. Specializing in creating living nightmares for invading armies, training and arming local populations, and guerrilla warfare, these men and women are expected to last against incredible odds for an indefinite amount of time in any environment imaginable.

_Task Force 32 – 7th Armored Infantry Division:_ When the USIF knows a target will need to become inundated with over-whelming firepower, the 7th Armored is brought it. Specializing in siege tactics and heavy weaponry, these men and women have adopted the unofficial slogan, "When in doubt, dial 7" which itself is a play on an old US Army saying from the second world war which went "When in doubt, call in an airstrike." Members of the 7th are also trained demolitions experts, and often are called in when miners face problems their own engineers can't solve. Or when another Task Force needs a really big explosion to occur.

_Task Force 33 - 8th Armored Infantry Division:_ When a mission absolutely cannon fail, the vaunted 8th Armored is called in. These men and women have earned the nickname Section 8 for their invention of the Burning In method of battlefield entry, which until a few years ago was thought to have been suicidal. Section 8 also acts as the Empires elite quick reaction force, often being the first ones to experience battle. Section 8, in particular 1st Recon, have single handedly ended the militia rebellion of the Arm of Orion in the Europa cluster, centered around New Madrid. When it comes to bleeding edge or even next gen technology and tactics, its guaranteed to have to pass Section 8's standards before it goes to the rest of the USIF.

* * *

**A/N:** Not the biggest chapter I've done, but I feel I set the tone for Empire and Council meetings, especially Hall's personality. Add in the outline of how the USIF operates it's military, and I feel that the wait has been justified.

Now, if you want to see the _Hephaestus_ that I designed follow these instructions

1 – Download Google SketchUp, its free and an excellent tool to have in my opinion.

2 – Head to **tinyurl com / n8asy6k** to get the file and see an isometric viewpoint of the ship.

3 – Download the file with the .skp ending, then open it with SketchUp.

4 – Viola! You can see the _Hephaestus_ as I imagine it. Roughly anyway.

Next bit of news. I am working on a website to house all of the codex entries and designs I come up with so you don't have to dig through the chapters to refresh your memories on what I've covered thus far. In the mean time, please follow me on Twitter to get weekly-ish updates on where I'm at with writing and other projects.

Final bit. Piecing together and enhancing one of the Eagle logos from Section 8: Prejudice took me some time as well. It is the image I describe Besea seeing before the video call starts. To see it at my DA page, head here: **tinyurl com / mspvx4z **

It has huge zoom, so feel free to download it for wallpaper or what have you.

That's it from me. My next project is chapter 4 for The Unsung Hero: Redux. Be on the look out for that, or go check it out if you haven't yet!

~DN7


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